Mike Lynch yacht sinking live: Tributes pour in for ‘genius’ mogul as search for daughter Hannah continues

Tech tycoon Mike Lynch, who died when his luxury yacht sank off the coast of Sicily, spent more than a decade building Britain’s biggest software company and for almost as long battling accusations that he inflated its value to secure a multi-billion pound sale.

Italian officials said Ms Lynch’s body was retrieved on Thursday from the wreckage of Monday’s disaster.

Lynch founded Autonomy in 1996 based on his groundbreaking research at Cambridge University and was lauded by shareholders, business leaders and politicians when he sold it to Hewlett-Packard for $11 billion 15 years later.

But in late 2012, HP stunned Wall Street and the City of London when it announced it had discovered a massive accounting scandal – a charge Lynch denied.

HP wrote down the value of the company by $8.8 billion, sparking a 12-year legal battle in courts from London to San Francisco.

Known for his brilliant intellect, Lynch turned cutting-edge academic research into a multi-billion pound technology business, becoming known as the British Bill Gates.

He wasn’t afraid to clash with his own critics, among them Oracle’s Larry Ellison, who played a central role in building his defense.

He hired some of the biggest names in British law and corporate communications to brief a handful of journalists in a room filled with neatly stacked company documents.

Even before the advent of advanced artificial intelligence, HP was attracted to Autonomy’s ability to find and organize unstructured information for customers — a killer application in a world of unlimited data.

Lynch received about $800 million for his Autonomy shares.

Bodies have been recovered from the wreckage of a luxury yacht that sank in a storm off the coast of Sicily during the search for six people who went missing.

Five bodies were brought to the shore of Porticello, a small fishing village about 11 miles from the Sicilian capital, Palermo.

The Italian coast guard confirmed to the PA news agency on Thursday that the sixth and final person yet to be found is a woman.

Details of the casualties on board are as follows:

An Italian doctor at the hospital where British tourist Charlotte Emslie and her one-year-old daughter were taken said the mother had been holding the baby above the waves after the yacht sank.

Dr Domenico Cipolla, from Palermo’s Di Cristina Children’s Hospital, told the PA news agency: “Obviously the mother and her husband are very upset about what happened and it’s a tragedy for them.”

“She told us she had fallen asleep with her baby and was in the water two minutes later, she didn’t know how this had happened and it had become dark all around her.

“She picked up the baby in her arms and lifted him high above the waves. The baby was underwater for a few seconds before she rescued him.

“She would sometimes cry at the hospital thinking about her friends.”

Hannah Lynch, 18, was on board her tech mogul father’s luxury cruise liner with 20 others when the Bayesian capsized in bad weather.

The bodies of Lynch, Morgan Stanley International Bank Chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife Judy Bloomer, and Clifford Chance Bank attorney Chris Morbillo and his wife Neda Morbillo have all been recovered from the wreckage and identified.

My colleague Holly Evans reports:

James Cutfield, the captain of the luxury yacht, was reportedly questioned for two hours as authorities began interviewing the entire crew on Thursday.

Survivors are recuperating at a hotel complex in Porticello and authorities are gathering witness statements.

Italian coast guard spokesman Vincenzo Zagarola said the preliminary indication was that the missing woman was still inside the boat.

Six people went missing when the Baysian superyacht sank, and only Mike Lynch’s daughter Hannah is still missing.

Christopher Morvillo’s law firm said it was “heartbroken” by the tragic deaths of the American lawyer and his wife, Neda.

In a statement to The Independent on Thursday, a Clifford Chance spokesman said: “We are heartbroken by the tragic deaths of his partner Christopher Morvillo and his wife Neda. We are deeply saddened and have yet to come to terms with this devastating loss. Our priority is to continue to support Chris’ family at this incredibly heartbreaking time. Our thoughts go out to the families and loved ones of all those affected.”

“We would like to express our deepest condolences, love and support to Chris’ family and friends at this extremely difficult time and would like to thank the Italian authorities and rescue teams for their efforts.”

An Italian coastguard spokesman said a decision on whether to raise the sunken yacht from the seabed was “not on the table” but that it would be taken at some point in the future.

“It’s not on the agenda. It will be on the agenda in due course, but not now,” Vincenzo Zagarola told the PA news agency.

The search for Mike Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, was called off in Sicily around 8pm on Thursday.

Divers are due to begin searching again for the wreckage of the Baysian superyacht from 6:30 a.m. on Friday.