Christopher Matthews (businessman)

Christopher Matthews (c. 1950 – 6 August 2004) was a British businessman, principally in internet services and dating agencies. He died in a helicopter crash in Wisconsin in August 2004.

Matthews, the son of a statistician, was born in Cheshire.[1][2] After education at St John's School, Leatherhead, Surrey, he gained a degree in engineering and then went on to work for the Marconi Company and for the Courtaulds Group.[2]

In 1992 from a base in Macclesfield, Cheshire, Matthews founded Club Sirius, a dating agency for single professionals, which quickly became very profitable. He later acquired Dateline and others which were combined into the OneSaturday Group.[2] Although Matthews sold OneSaturday shortly before his death, most of his wealth came from internet service company Telinco, which he sold for £250 million to World Online in 2000, shortly before the Dot-com crash.[2][3] Other ventures included aviation company Cav-Air of Fort Lauderdale, Florida and boatyard Seastream in Southampton, England.[2]

From 1998 Matthews lived as a tax exile on his yacht Tosca III in the Mediterranean and Caribbean.[1] In 2001 Seastream purchased the former Irish naval patrol boat Deirdre for conversion to a large yacht, renaming her Tosca IV. Following Matthews' death the part-converted vessel was sold.

He was married to Marie-France, with whom he had three of his four children.[1]

Piloting an EC130 helicopter registered N450CM, Matthews died aged 54, along with his aide Jim Beauregard, when it crashed at Sauk Prairie after hitting power lines over Lake Wisconsin on 6 August 2004.[2][4] The subsequent investigation found that the helicopter was being flown inexplicably low.[4]

References
  1. Davies, Caroline (11 August 2004). "British online dating tycoon dies in US helicopter crash". Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 22 October 2015.
  2. Bunyan, Nigel (12 August 2004). "Jet-set aide dies with dating tycoon". Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 22 October 2015.
  3. Javary, Michèle. "Governing the "New Economy": a 3-Phase Historical Model of Cumulative Gales of Creative Destruction of the United Kingdom Internet Service Providers' Market". Brighton: University of Sussex. p. 34. Retrieved 22 October 2015.
  4. "NTSB Identification: CHI04FA214". Washington DC: National Transportation Safety Board. Retrieved 22 October 2015.
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