Divers have recovered the bodies of Mike Lynch and four of his guests from the wreckage of the superyacht Bayesian, the Italian Coast Guard announced today.
The vessel sank near the coast of Sicily early Monday morning amid an intense storm. Fifteen passengers were rescued by the crew of the Sir Robert Baden Powell, a Dutch ship that was anchored nearby. Lynch’s daughter is still missing.
Lynch was one of the U.K.’s most prominent technology entrepreneurs and investors. In 1996, he co-founded Autonomy Corp., a major provider of unstructured data management and search software. The company was acquired by HP Inc. in 2011 at a $11.7 billion valuation, one of the largest sums paid up to that point for an enterprise software company.
Lynch was also an investor in several British tech firms including Darktrace plc, a major cybersecurity provider. The company was acquired by a private equity firm earlier this year in a deal worth about $5 billion.
Shortly after closing the Autonomy acquisition, HP took a $8.8 billion write-down that it blamed on “serious accounting improprieties” at the data management specialist. The accusation set off a protracted legal battle between the company and Lynch, who was Autonomy’s chief executive at the time of the deal. This past July, a San Francisco jury acquitted the entrepreneur of all charges.
It’s believed that Lynch and his guests were aboard the Bayesian on Monday to celebrate his acquittal. Around 5 a.m. local time, the 540-ton superyacht was hit by a waterspout, a rotating column of air over water. The vessel sank within minutes.
The Bayesian reportedly sank after the storm broke its mast. The 246-foot aluminum structure was described as the tallest of its kind in the world. According to the BBC, the captain of a ship that was anchored nearby saw the mast “bend and then snap” before the superyacht sank.
A team of divers retrieved five bodies from the 160-foot-deep wreckage site on Wednesday and Thursday morning. Local authorities have not yet made formal identification.
Lynch was aboard the Bayesian with four guests who were reported missing after the vessel sank. The guests were identified as attorney Christopher Morvillo of the law firm Clifford Chance, Morgan Stanley International chair Jonathan Bloomer and their wives. Morvillo represented Lynch in the Autonomy trial and Bloomer was a witness for the defense.
Numerous business leaders, technologists and investors paid tribute to Lynch this week. “His ability to understand how tech can solve big challenges, and then successfully commercialize it was truly unique” Russ Shaw, the founder of U.K. technology industry groups Tech London Advocates and Global Tech Advocates, told CNBC. “Mike will rightly be remembered for his work in nurturing some of Britain’s great tech companies.”