Former UBS private equity specialist Edwin Richards has cast his net wide finding a company to take over fallen dotcom star-turned cash shell Nettec.

Brought in earlier this year as chief executive to find a new incarnation for the AIM company, with no more business but £10 million still in the bank, he says he considered 100 proposals before lighting on a reverse takeover by upmarket Canadian and Caribbean resort developer Newfound.

Nettec, where founder Jeremy White still has 26 per cent and aggressive institutions hold much of the rest, is to issue shares to Newfound, headed by Canadian entrepreneur Brian Dobbin, which is developing a luxury chalet complex on the shores of the Humber River and Deer Lake in Newfoundland. White is to chair the cashed-up Newfound group, which will benefit from a £3.7 million loan from Nettec to fund a similar project at Nevis in the Caribbean.

Richards, 41, originally hoped to point Nettec towards companies in distress over pension liabilities. But he says expensive holidays fit the bill just as well.

Nettec	AIM	0pm	p	p
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Richards woos pension victims			07/02/2006