The story of tech tycoon now feared to be on a sunken superyacht
He is the tech tycoon dubbed Britain’s ‘Bill Gates‘ who is now feared to have been on board a sunken superyacht.
Mike Lynch, a former advisor to then-Prime Minister David Cameron and BBC board member, is believed to be among the passengers trapped on the luxury yacht which sank off the coast of Sicily this morning.
Divers are desperately searching the wreck of the Bayesian, which is on the sea bed 160ft beneath the water.
Tragically, the body of a man – thought to be the boat’s chef – was found floating alongside the vessel earlier today.
Mr Lynch, 59, who is one of the UK’s richest men and worth an estimated £852million, is believed to have owned the stricken boat.
Mike Lynch is one of the UK’s richest men, worth an estimated £852million
Tech tycoon and married father-of-two Mike Lynch is pictured here with his wife Angela
Mike Lynch (second left) is seen in the early days of his techology firm Autonomy in Cambridge
He is believed to own the Bayesian superyacht which sank off the coast of Sicily this morning
Earlier this year he was cleared of all charges by an American jury in the high-profile fraud case relating to the sale of his software firm Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2011.
It was a major victory for the tech guru – who is a fan of James Bond – after being dogged by legal problems since the disastrous $11billion (£8.3billion) sale 13 years ago.
Born in Ilford in Essex, Mr Lynch was defended in court in California by a lawyer who previously represented Jeffrey Epstein and Roman Polanski.
His rise to fame and fortune had been celebrated a major and pioneering British success story and the married father of two daughters was awarded an OBE in 2006 for services to enterprise.
Yet in March this year he found himself in a San Francisco courtroom to defend himself against fraud and conspiracy charges – and ultimately won his freedom.
The 59-year-old tycoon had spent much of the previous year living under house arrest with an electronic tag attached to his ankle.
Fighting his corner will be a legal team led by Reid Weingarten, described as one of the US legal system’s most successful white-collar defenders.
Mr Lynch had potentially faced up to 20 years in a US prison if found guilty of 16 counts of conspiracy, and securities and wire fraud, which he denied.
A frantic search is underway at the site of the shipwreck after the Bayesian sank this morning
A local Facebook group shared a picture of the yacht (left) at anchor last night. The vessel has been named as the Bayesian, and is said to sail under a British flag
The search area this morning off the coast of Porticello, Sicily
Divers from the fire service have been supporting search and rescue efforts
The charges related to a business deal that was hailed at the time as his crowning glory – the £8.6billion sale of his software and data company Autonomy to US computer giant Hewlett-Packard in 2011.
Mr Lynch personally made more than £500million from the deal, only for HP to later wrote down three-quarters of the value of Autonomy only a year after buying it.
The US company fired Mr Lynch while accusing accusing him and other executives of having grossly inflated its size and profits during the sale.
He had previously lost a 2019 civil fraud case based on similar allegations that HP – now Hewlett Packard Enterprises (HPE) – brought in the UK, with London’s High Court ruling in 2020 that HPE had ‘substantially won’ its case.
His separate three-year battle to avoid being extradited to face criminal charges culminated in Lynch going to the High Court to argue that American prosecutors were guilty of legal overreach which threatened UK sovereignty and its citizens.
His plea was rejected and in May last year he was flown to California, accompanied by the U.S. Marshals Service, still protesting his innocence.
And on June 6 this year he was acquitted of fraud today by a jury in San Francisco, while former Autonomy finance executive Stephen Chamberlain, who faced the same charges, was also acquitted on all counts.
The luxury sailboat which sank today had been docked off the coast of Porticello, near Palermo, when a tornado hit the area just before 5am – wrecking the boat and causing it to rapidly disappear beneath the waves.
Nautical maps show the last known location of the Bayesian just after 2am local time, when it was at anchor
The Sir Robert BP, a Dutch sailing ship which had been anchored nearby the Bayesian, is believed to have rescued some of those on board (file image)
Divers are scouring the wreckage of the superyacht, which is 160ft underwater off the coast of Sicily
Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares was among the fifteen people who were rescued from the 180ft yacht, which had been carrying ten crew members, the owner and 11 guests.
A one-year-old baby and her parents were also among those rescued by a nearby sailboat, but six of the passengers – who include British, American and Canadian citizens – remained unaccounted for.
