Jim MacDougald had a hunch about a company that hunts forshipwrecks. It was a golden insight.
By SCOTT BARANCIK
Published February 6, 2004
ST. PETERSBURG - When Jim MacDougald invested $3-million several years ago in a Tampa company that hunts for shipwrecked treasure, some friends thought he had gone off the deep end.
Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. hadn't earned a penny the prior year, surviving instead on high-interest loans from officers, directors and even its co-founders' parents. It couldn't afford to hold annual shareholder meetings or pay some of its executives' salaries. In February 2001, a speculator could buy a share of its stock for two quarters and still get change back.
"The people who didn't know better thought I was just investing in guys with a mask and a snorkel," MacDougald says now.
But the Snell Isle resident's gamble paid off.
When Odyssey found a Civil War-era wreck late last year with thousands of gold and silver coins aboard, the company's stock shot up, and MacDougald began to cash in shares.
His take so far: $8-million. His remaining Odyssey shares would fetch an additional $30.5-million at Thursday's closing stock price of $4.30, though he plans to hold a substantial number of shares for a long time.
MacDougald says he never considered the investment "crazy." Sonar improvements allowed Odyssey to view the ocean's contents in kilometer-wide swaths. Better fiber optics brought clearer video from the ocean's floor to monitors at the surface. Global positioning systems were growing more accurate.
"Most people saw Odyssey as a treasure-hunting company," he said. "I saw it as a technology company."
The investment paid off for Odyssey, too. Co-founder Greg Stemm said the company used the cash to finance equipment and search expeditions that helped lead to the discovery of the SS Republic off the Florida-Georgia coast.
"I don't know what would have happened without Jim's investment," Stemm said.
MacDougald, 60, wasn't the only local notable to recognize Odyssey's potential. Public records show auto dealer James Ferman Jr. and gas-station mogul Bud Risser as investors, though on a much smaller scale.
Nor is this the first time that MacDougald has struck gold on a hunch.
In 1982, MacDougald quit a secure job with a New York insurance company to start Benefits Control, later ABR Information Services, which taught health insurance companies how to manage their paperwork with computers. He and his wife, Suzanne, ran the operation out of their New Jersey home, then moved it to the Tampa Bay area in 1987. Ceridian Corp. of Minneapolis bought ABR in 1999 for $750-million. The couple walked away with an estimated $43-million.
MacDougald also has tasted defeat. A sailboat company he bought cratered less than two years later. A plan to tear down older Snell Isle homes and sell "spec" ones in their place has not panned out as hoped.
In addition to investing, MacDougald remains an active philanthropist and volunteer, serving on the boards of the Salvador Dali Museum, Eckerd College, the Rays of Hope Foundation and the Special Operations Warrior Foundation.
Eckerd College may be the luckiest charity among them. From mid 2002 to mid 2003, MacDougald gave the college 300,000 shares of his Odyssey stock.
An Eckerd spokeswoman wouldn't say how much of the stock the college still holds, if any. At Thursday's closing price, the shares would have been worth nearly $1.3-million.
