Lynch and Other Yacht Passengers Feared Dead, Coast Guard Says

(Bloomberg) -- British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer are among those feared dead aboard the sunken wreckage of a luxury yacht off the coast of Sicily, following a statement from the Italian coastguard.

“Never say never is our motto,” Vincenzo Zagarola, spokesperson for the Italian Coast Guard, said. “But, at this point, it would be reasonable to think that we are more likely to find the missing people inside the boat.”

Zagarola added that the search for the six missing people would continue, with the help of military ships and helicopters. In a separate interview with the PA news agency when asked if the passengers would be found alive, he said “reasonably the answer should be not.”

Six guests and nine crew were rescued from the Bayesian yacht, which sank after a tornado struck the vessel near Porticello, Sicily on Monday. Lynch and his family were celebrating his recent acquittal from fraud charges with a small group of advisers when the violent storm hit. 

The head of the civil protection agency in Sicily, Salvo Cocina, said in a message to Bloomberg earlier on Tuesday that the six missing passengers are Bloomer and his wife Judy, Clifford Chance partner Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda, as well as Lynch and his daughter Hannah.

Lynch, 59, had been seeking to restore his reputation as one of Europe’s most successful entrepreneurs. For years, he’d argued that he had been scapegoated over the $11 billion acquisition of his software company, Autonomy Corp., by Hewlett Packard Co. in 2011. A year later, HP wrote down $8.8 billion of the purchase price and publicly accused Lynch of fraud. 

Italian authorities have already begun a probe into the sinking. The UK’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch, which investigates marine accidents involving British vessels worldwide, has sent four inspectors to Sicily to conduct a preliminary assessment, according to a spokesperson for the Department for Transport. They will speak to the local authorities and emergency service crews to determine whether they need to launch an investigation.

--With assistance from Donato Paolo Mancini and Olivia Solon.

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