In June, a significant trial in the bustling city of London cleared British technology entrepreneur Mike Lynch of fraud charges. The allegations, made by Hewlett Packard, claimed that he had manipulated the value of his company when he sold it to the U.S. enterprise tech giant for $11.7 billion in 2011.
Lynch, once dubbed “Britain’s Bill Gates” by the U.K. national press, went missing only two months after his acquittal due to the sinking of a superyacht off the coast of Sicily on Monday.
The yacht, known as the Bayesian, unfortunately capsized in the early hours of the morning near Porticello, a charming fishing village nestled in the picturesque province of Palermo, Italy. An unusually intense storm struck the area, according to local media reports.
Following the unfortunate incident involving the yacht’s collapse, Angela Bacares, Lynch’s wife, was fortunate to survive. Officials have reported the unfortunate loss of one individual, with six others, including Hannah Lynch, still unaccounted for.
As search and rescue operations resumed on Tuesday, the civil protection agency in Sicily informed reporters on Monday evening that Jonathan Bloomer, Chairman of Morgan Stanley International, along with his wife Judy, Chris Morvillo, a lawyer from Clifford Chance, and his wife Neda, had gone missing.
On Saturday, Stephen Chamberlain, a former vice president of finance at Autonomy and a co-defendant in Lynch’s trial, tragically lost his life while out for a run in Cambridgeshire, England, due to a car hitting him. Chamberlain’s lawyer shared this heartbreaking news with the Reuters news agency.
Who is Mike Lynch?
Lynch, who is 59 years old, is the founder of Autonomy, an enterprise software firm. In addition, he is the founder of Invoke Capital, a venture capital firm that specialises in supporting European tech startups.
He found himself embroiled in a lengthy legal dispute with Hewlett-Packard when the technology company alleged that Lynch had exaggerated Autonomy’s worth in a sale worth $11.7 billion. Within just one year of its acquisition, HP suffered a significant $8.8 billion write-down on the value of autonomy.
Last year, the HP allegations brought Lynch from Britain to the U.S. for trial. Lynch allegedly devised a plan to artificially boost Autonomy’s revenue from 2009 onwards, with the intention of attracting potential buyers, thereby committing criminal acts such as wire fraud and conspiracy.
However, Lynch, who has consistently denied the allegations, recently achieved a surprising triumph when he was acquitted of fraud charges after a lengthy three-month trial.
Throughout the trial, Lynch testified in his own defence, vehemently denying any wrongdoing and asserting that HP mishandled the integration of autonomy.
Prosecutors claimed that Lynch, along with Autonomy’s late finance executive, Chamberlain, artificially inflated Autonomy’s finances through various means.
These included back-dated agreements and deals known as round-tripping, which aimed to artificially boost Autonomy’s sales by providing cash to customers through fraudulent contracts.
Lynch informed the jurors that his primary focus at Autonomy was on technology-related matters, while leaving accounting and financial decisions to the company’s then-chief financial officer, Sushovan Hussain.
Hussain faced separate convictions in the United States back in 2018 for his involvement in conspiracy, wire fraud, and securities fraud related to the HP deal. In January, his five-year prison term came to an end.
Often referred to as “Britain’s Bill Gates,” Lynch was born in Ilford, a bustling town in East London, in 1965. He spent his formative years near Chelmsford, in the picturesque county of Essex.
He pursued his education at the prestigious University of Cambridge, immersing himself in the study of natural sciences. His areas of focus included electronics, mathematics, and biology. Following his undergraduate studies, Lynch successfully obtained a Ph.D. in signals processing and communications.
In the late 1980s, Lynch established Lynett Systems Ltd., a company that specialised in creating designs and audio products for the music industry.
Several years later, during the early 1990s, he established Cambridge Neurodynamics, a business specialising in fingerprint recognition. Notably, the South Yorkshire Police were among the customers of this venture.
However, his significant opportunity arose in 1996 with Autonomy, a company he helped establish as a spinoff from Cambridge Neurodynamics alongside David Tabizel and Richard Gaunt. The company grew to become one of the largest tech firms in Britain.
Lynch wielded significant power in the U.K. technology industry at the height of his success, and the media even compared him to Bill Gates.
He has previously served on the board of the BBC, a U.K. broadcaster. Furthermore, he has experience serving as an advisor to the British government on the Council for Science and Technology.
Lynch, as the head of venture firm Invoke, played a critical role in supporting the growth of British cybersecurity firm Darktrace and legal software startup Luminance. He provided substantial financial backing to both companies, helping them establish a strong foundation.
Darktrace, a publicly listed company, was accused of inflating its revenue by US short-seller Quintessential Capital Management. However, earlier this year, Thoma Bravo, a U.S. private equity firm, agreed to acquire and take Darktrace private for $5.32 billion in cash.
The business news outlet reported that Lynch’s estimated net worth of $1 billion placed him on Forbes’ billionaires list in 2014 and 2015. However, the HP dispute led to the removal of Lynch’s name from the list in 2016.
Aside from his legal battles, Lynch stays occupied with various hobbies, such as tending to cattle and pigs at his residence in Suffolk.
“I am collecting rare breeds,” Lynch shared with LeadersIn during an interview. I have cows that became obsolete in the 1940s and pigs that haven’t been raised since mediaeval times, but none of them possess any Apple products whatsoever.
The local East Anglian Times newspaper reports that Lynch withdrew to his farm in Suffolk, a county in the east of England, to recover from his legal dispute in the United States.
Prior to being reported missing, Lynch expressed his concerns to The Times newspaper about the possibility of facing imprisonment and the fear of dying if found guilty of the HP allegations.
“If this had taken a negative turn, it would have completely upended my life as I have come to understand it,” Lynch expressed in the interview with The Times.
It’s quite peculiar, but now you have a second chance at life. The real question is, what do you aspire to accomplish with it? he stated.
