Doug Lockyer
David Papworth

Doug began to get merger and acquisition offers from Skymall, Carlson an others, and meanwhile the company had grown in revenues more than 300% per year.

At the time of Riptide's merger in late 1999 / early 2000, the company had staff of 40 (with not one single defection, resignation or termination in four years) a cost base of a little under $4.4 Million and revenues just under $10 Million.

The M&A deal consisted of a $5M cash / $10 M (aprox.) stock trade and closed in March 2000.

Offers from SkyMall and Carlson were ( in hindsight, regrettably) declined.

The company had been self financing since day one, was $100 per cent owned by Doug Lockyer and had been profitable for three years.

Sadly Riptide merged with the wrong firm at the wrong time and had an IPO which, though opening at $12 on NASDAQ, resulted in a catastrophic crash when the dot-com bubble burst in April 2000.