News reaches us that Terry Pritchard, MD of equity release provider Charterhouse Retirement Solutions, is one of the people behind the takeover of Portsmouth Football Club. Pritchard is a hugely popular figure in the world of specialist lending and prior to his involvement with Charterhouse, he was a director of specialist mortgage lender Edeus and before that, MD of bespoke finance provider Chase UK.

Pritchard is believed to be arranging the finance for Tom Lever, a 21 year old entrepreneur from Cheshire and former star of the MTV reality series about Alderley Edge called “Living on the Edge” and we understand that Pritchard will take a position on the board of Portsmouth, should the bid by Lever be successful.

More as we get it.

JC Hennon will take a 29.9% stake in the company however the business will still be run on a day to day basis by the current management team led by Katrina Langford. emiratesdubaihotels.net say that there will be no interference in the management of the company, however in addition to the cash injection which will allow them to develop a long term marketing strategy and partnership programme, they will benefit from the experience and contacts that JC Hennon can bring.

Katrina Langford states: “This is wonderful news for our company. We were not actively looking for investment but when the opportunity arose, we were more than happy to speak to the team at JC Hennon and after that very first meeting, we just knew that we were a good strategic fit for each other.”

“We have exclusive contracts with some of Dubai’s finest hotels and we are looking to develop this further in 2010 and then look to expand into other territories in 2011. This significant investment will help us to achieve our goal by developing our own software that will manage our partnerships and back end booking system.”