Fears are growing for six people who are missing after a superyacht, the Bayesian, sank off the coast of Sicily when it was hit by a tornadic waterspout during a storm on Monday morning.
On Monday the body of one man, the yacht’s chef, was recovered from the water. There were 15 survivors. A rescue mission is under way to search for six others who remain unaccounted for. The four Britons and two Americans have all been named. Here is what we know about them.
Mike Lynch
The 59-year-old software millionaire is one of the few examples of a UK entrepreneur who created a global technology company.
In June he was cleared of 15 counts of fraud he had faced in the US over the $11.1bn purchase of his company, Autonomy, by the Silicon Valley multinational Hewlett-Packard in 2011.
Lynch was raised by Irish-born parents near Chelmsford in Essex; his mother was a nurse and his father a firefighter. He studied physics, mathematics and biochemistry at Cambridge University, eventually specialising in adaptive pattern recognition. His doctoral thesis is reportedly one of the most widely read pieces of research in the university library.
After launching a few early technology startups – including one that specialised in automatic number plate, fingerprint and facial recognition software for the police – he created Autonomy in 1996. Its software was used by companies to analyse huge caches of data and partly owed its efficacy to Bayesian inference, a statistical theory devised by the 18th-century statistician, philosopher and Presbyterian minister Thomas Bayes.
Autonomy was an almost immediate business success. The company floated in Brussels in 1998 and rapid growth coupled with the dotcom boom led to a move to the London Stock Exchange, where it joined the FTSE 100 of top UK-listed companies.
Lynch’s triumphs led to him becoming a science adviser to David Cameron when he was prime minister and a non-executive director of the BBC, as well as receiving an OBE in 2006 for services to enterprise.
However, while Autonomy impressed HP enough to pay more than $11bn for the company in 2011, it only took a year for the US computing company to take an $8.8bn writedown on its acquisition, saying it had discovered “serious accounting improprieties” at the UK business. Lynch in effect had been involved in defending his reputation ever since – with the legacy of the claims continuing to have ramifications despite the entrepreneur always denying the allegations of wrongdoing.
Autonomy’s former finance director Sushovan Hussain was sentenced to five years in prison in the US after being convicted in 2018 of fraud in relation to the HP deal.
Hannah Lynch
The 18-year-old, one of Lynch’s two daughters, was celebrating her A-level results last week after reportedly securing a place to read English at Oxford University.
She took her A-levels at Latymer Upper, a private school in Hammersmith, west London, where she won a number of school prizes. The school confirmed she attended from 2017 to 2024. In a statement, a spokesperson said: “We are all incredibly shocked by the news that Hannah and her father are among those missing in this tragic incident and our thoughts are with their family and everyone involved as we await further updates.”
Jonathan Bloomer
Bloomer, 70, was a non-executive director at Lynch’s company Autonomy, where he served as chair of the audit committee. He testified as a witness in the high court civil trial in 2019 brought against Lynch by HP over its purchase of Autonomy.
Bloomer is a well-known and connected figure in the City and his career took in a decade at the insurance group Prudential, where he was chief executive for five years. He studied physics at Imperial College London and joined Prudential in 1995 from the now defunct Arthur Andersen, where he had spent 20 years and became a partner auditing insurance and finance companies.
After he left Prudential in 2005 following a shock £1bn rights issue, Bloomer was replaced as chief executive by Mark Tucker, now the chair of HSBC.
He spent seven years as partner at the private equity house Cerberus European Capital Advisors and in recent years took up a number of senior roles including as chair of Morgan Stanley International from November 2016, and became chair of the insurer Hiscox in July 2023.
Aki Hussain, the group chief executive officer of Hiscox, said: “We are deeply shocked and saddened by this tragic event. Our thoughts are with all those affected, in particular our chair, Jonathan Bloomer, and his wife, Judy, who are among the missing, and with their family as they await further news from this terrible situation.”
Morgan Stanley said: “We are deeply shocked and saddened by this tragedy. Our thoughts are with all those affected, in particular the Bloomer family, as we all wait for further news from this terrible situation.”
Judy Bloomer
Bloomer, 71, is registered as a former director of the property developer Change Real Estate. She also served a seven-year stint as director of the Eve Appeal, a gynaecological cancer research charity.
In a statement the charity said she had been a trustee and committee member for 20 years. Its chief executive, Athena Lamnisos, said: “Everyone at the charity is deeply shocked to hear the news that our very dear friend Judy is amongst the missing. Our thoughts are with Judy and Jonathan’s family, and all those who are still waiting for news after this tragic event.”
Chris Morvillo
Morvillo, 59, is a partner at the magic circle law firm Clifford Chance and was one of the key lawyers who helped Lynch fight his criminal trial in the US. He has extensive experience representing corporate and individual clients in white-collar government investigations and regulatory and civil proceedings.
From 1999 to 2005, he served as an assistant US attorney for the southern district of New York. He also assisted in the criminal investigation arising out of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Morvillo, along with Brian Heberlig, a partner at the law firm Steptoe, served as co-counsel for Lynch in his US criminal trial. Both were delighted in June when Lynch was acquitted of securities and wire fraud based on claims that he falsely inflated revenues at Autonomy. Morvillo afterwards posted a note thanking the legal teams on LinkedIn.
Neda Morvillo
Clifford Chance confirmed that Morvillo, 57, was among those missing. In a statement its spokesperson said: “We are in shock and deeply saddened by this tragic incident. Our thoughts are with our partner, Christopher Morvillo, and his wife, Neda, who are among the missing.
“Our utmost priority is providing support to the family as well as our colleague Ayla Ronald, who together with her partner thankfully survived the incident. Our thoughts extend to the other passengers and crew and all those affected.”
Morvillo runs a luxury jewellery business under her previous name, Neda Nassiri. A biography on the company’s website says: “Neda has been designing and hand-crafting fine jewelry in New York City for over 20 years.” It says she trained with the master goldsmith Cecelia Bauer.
In the post on LinkedIn after the Lynch trial Morvillo praised his wife and two daughters, saying: “A huge thank you to my patient and incredible wife, Neda Morvillo, and my two strong, brilliant, and beautiful daughters, Sabrina Morvillo and Sophia Morvillo. None of this would have been possible without your love and support. I am so glad to be home.”