Charterhouse has hired Lehman Brothers and HBOS as joint lead arrangers for the £830m (€1.211bn) refinancing of Coral Eurobet, the UK betting chain, in a transaction that will allow the private equity group to recoup £309m from its original investment of £860m made in October 2002.

Charterhouse revealed details of the refinancing in a letter to its investors in which it also announced that Philip Bowman, the chief executive of Allied Domecq, the drinks group, would replace Jeremy Greenhalgh as chairman of the Coral Eurobet.