Sicily yacht sinking: Morgan Stanley International chair Jonathan Bloomer among missing

YEREVAN, AUGUST 20, ARMENPRESS. Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer is among those missing after a yacht carrying UK tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch sank off the coast of Sicily during a violent storm, The Guardian reported citing an Italian official.

Salvatore Cocina, head of the civil protection agency in Sicily, said Bloomer and Chris Morvillo, a lawyer at Clifford Chance, were among the six people missing. Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, were also unaccounted for as of late Monday.

The update came as it was reported that Lynch’s co-defendant in a US trial related to the sale of his software company to Hewlett-Packard had died after being hit by a car in England.

The British-flagged Bayesian, a 56-metre sailboat, was carrying 22 people and anchored just off shore near the port of Porticello when it was hit by a tornado in the early hours of Monday morning, the Italian coastguard said in an earlier statement.

One man, understood to be the vessel’s chef, was confirmed dead. The coastguard said the missing had British, American and Canadian nationalities.

Fifteen people were rescued, including Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, who owned the boat, and a one-year-old girl who was saved by her mother.

A spokesperson for Lynch, the co-founder of Autonomy, a software firm that became one of the shining lights of the UK tech scene, declined to comment. Survivors said the trip had been organised by Lynch for his work colleagues.

Once described as Britain’s Bill Gates, Lynch spent much of the last decade in court defending his name against allegations of fraud related to the sale of his software firm, Autonomy, to the US tech company Hewlett-Packard for $11bn.

The 59-year-old was acquitted by a jury in San Francisco in June, after he had spent more than a year living in effect under house arrest.

Hours after news of the sinking broke it emerged that his co-defendant at that trial, Stephen Chamberlain, had died after being hit by a car while out running in Cambridgeshire.

Chamberlain, the former vice-president of finance at Autonomy, was hit on Saturday morning and had been placed on life support, Reuters reported. In a statement Chamberlain’s lawyer, Gary Lincenberg, said he had died after being “fatally struck” by a car while out running.

On Monday, rescue divers were trying to reach the hull of Bayesian, which was carrying a crew of 10 people and 12 passengers, according to the Italian coast guard.

The boat had sunk to approximately 49 metres and the public prosecutor’s office in Termini Imerese was investigating the incident.