Mike Lynch, the 59-year-old British tech investor, is among those missing after a tornado hit a luxury yacht he was on, to sink it off the coast from Sicily, Italy, early Monday, a source told CNN.
Lynch made much of his fortune by co-founding Autonomy, a technology company that was acquired by Hewlett-Packard, or HP, for $11 billion in 2011. A lawyer for Lynch recently revealed that the entrepreneur’s total net worth is around $100,000. 450 million dollars.
The sale of Autonomy was one of the biggest UK technology deals at the time, but quickly spiralled out of control as HP discounted Autonomy’s value by 10%. $8.8 billion within a year. The acquisition of Autonomy was intended to boost HP’s software business. Instead, blockbuster sales have been stalled by legal problems that recently culminated in a fraud trial.
Prosecutors accused Lynch and Autonomy’s former chief financial officer, Stephen Chamberlain, of conspiring to inflate Autonomy’s revenue before selling to HP. In June, Lynch was acquitted of 15 charges — one count of conspiracy and 14 counts of wire fraud — in a San Francisco court.
The verdict came as a surprise to Lynch. “When you hear that answer, you jump from universe to universe. If this had gone the wrong way, it would have been the end of life as I have known it in any sense,” he told the Times, a British newspaper.
Founded in 1996, Autonomy became Britain’s largest software company and a member of the blue-chip FTSE 100 index. Lynch was praised by academics and scientists at the time and was asked to advise the British government on technology and innovation.
The vessel Lynch was on, the Bayesian, has been linked to his wife, Angela Bacares, who was among those rescued. Ownership records from maritime information service Equasis show the 56-metre yacht is owned by Isle of Man-registered Revtom Limited, a company owned by his wife.
Fifteen others were rescued from the scene. One child was taken by helicopter to Palermo Children’s Hospital and eight people were hospitalized in total, the mayor’s office said. One body was found on the hull of the yacht, the coast guard said.
–Barbie Latza Nadeau of Reuters and CNN contributed to this report.
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