Mike Lynch, 59, is the founding father of enterprise software program agency Autonomy. He was acquitted of fraud costs in June after defending himself in a trial over allegations that he artificially inflated Autonomy’s worth in an $11.7 billion sale to tech large Hewlett Packard.
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LONDON — British know-how entrepreneur Mike Lynch was acquitted of fraud costs in June in a landmark trial over allegations made by Hewlett Packard that he had artificially inflated the worth of his firm when he bought it to the U.S. enterprise tech large for $11.7 billion in 2011.
Simply two months after his acquittal, Lynch — who was as soon as lauded by the U.Ok. nationwide press as “Britain’s Invoice Gates” — was reported lacking Monday after the sinking of a superyacht off the coast of Sicily.
The yacht, referred to as the Bayesian, capsized at round 4 a.m. native time whereas anchored off the coast of Porticello, a small fishing village situated within the province of Palermo in Italy. It was struck by an unexpectedly violent storm, in line with native media stories.
Lynch’s spouse, Angela Bacares, is among the many 15 individuals who have been rescued after the yacht’s collapse. At the least one man has died, whereas six folks — together with Lynch’s daughter Hannah — stay unaccounted for, officers have mentioned.
Sicily’s civil safety company instructed reporters late Monday that Morgan Stanley Worldwide chairman, Jonathan Bloomer, his spouse Judy, Clifford Likelihood lawyer Chris Morvillo and his spouse Neda have been additionally lacking as troublesome search and rescue efforts resumed on Tuesday.
In a separate incident Saturday, Stephen Chamberlain, the previous vp of finance at Autonomy and a co-defendant in Lynch’s trial, died after being “fatally struck” by a automotive whereas out operating in Cambridgeshire, Chamberlain’s lawyer instructed Reuters information company.
Who’s Mike Lynch?
Lynch, 59, is the founding father of enterprise software program agency Autonomy. He additionally runs Invoke Capital, a enterprise capital agency targeted on backing European tech startups, which he based in 2012.
He grew to become the goal of a protracted authorized battle with Hewlett Packard after the know-how agency accused Lynch of inflating Autonomy’s worth in an $11.7 billion sale. HP took an $8.8 billion write-down on the worth of Autonomy inside a 12 months of shopping for it.
Lynch was extradited from Britain to the U.S. final 12 months to face trial over the HP allegations. He confronted felony costs, together with wire fraud and conspiracy for allegedly scheming to inflate Autonomy’s income beginning in 2009 in a bid to entice a purchaser.
However two months in the past, Lynch, who has lengthy denied the accusations, was acquitted of fraud costs in a shock victory following the trial, which lasted for 3 months.
In the course of the trial, Lynch took the stand in his personal protection, denying wrongdoing and telling jurors that HP botched Autonomy’s integration.
Prosecutors had alleged Lynch, together with Autonomy’s now-deceased finance government Chamberlain, padded Autonomy’s funds in quite a lot of methods.
These included back-dated agreements and so-called “round-tripping” offers that sought to artificially inflate Autonomy’s gross sales by fronting money money to clients by way of pretend contracts.
Lynch instructed jurors that he was targeted on technology-related issues at Autonomy and left accounting and cash selections to the corporate’s then-chief monetary officer, Sushovan Hussain.
Hussain was individually convicted within the U.S. in 2018 on costs of conspiracy, wire fraud and securities fraud associated to the HP deal. He was launched from jail in January after serving a five-year sentence.
‘Britain’s Invoice Gates’
Lynch was born in Ilford, a big city in East London, in 1965 and grew up close to Chelmsford in the English county of Essex.
He attended the College of Cambridge, the place he studied pure sciences, specializing in areas together with electronics, arithmetic and biology. After finishing his undergraduate research, Lynch accomplished a Ph.D. in alerts processing and communications.
Towards the tip of the Eighties, Lynch based Lynett Techniques Ltd., a agency which produced designs and audio merchandise for the music business.
A couple of years later, within the early Nineties, he based a fingerprint recognition enterprise referred to as Cambridge Neurodynamics, which counted the South Yorkshire Police amongst its clients.
However his massive break got here in 1996 with Autonomy, which he co-founded with David Tabizel and Richard Gaunt as a derivative from Cambridge Neurodynamics. The corporate scaled into considered one of Britain’s largest tech corporations.
Lynch held a variety of affect within the U.Ok. know-how sphere on the top of his success, having as soon as been dubbed Britain’s Invoice Gates by the media.
He was beforehand on the board of U.Ok. broadcaster BBC. He additionally as soon as served as an advisor to the British authorities on the Council for Science and Expertise.
In his function as head of enterprise agency Invoke, Lynch was carefully concerned in serving to British cybersecurity agency Darktrace and authorized software program startup Luminance get off the bottom, backing each corporations with sizable sums of money.
Publicly-listed Darktrace, which had fended off related allegations of inflating its revenues by U.S. brief vendor Quintessential Capital Administration (QCM), earlier this 12 months agreed a deal to purchased out and brought non-public by U.S. non-public fairness agency Thoma Bravo for $5.32 billion in money.
Lynch beforehand made the Forbes’ billionaires checklist in 2014 and 2015, with an estimate web price of $1 billion, in line with the enterprise information outlet. Nevertheless, whereas going through authorized prices within the dispute with HP, he dropped off the checklist in 2016.
Authorized struggles apart, Lynch has a number of hobbies to maintain him busy, together with holding and caring for cattle and pigs at his residence in Suffolk.
“I preserve uncommon breeds,” Lynch instructed LeadersIn throughout an interview. “I’ve cows that grew to become defunct within the Nineteen Forties and pigs that nobody has saved for the reason that medieval occasions and none of them have any Apple merchandise in any respect.”
Lynch reportedly returned to his farm in Suffolk, a county within the East of England, to recuperate from his U.S. authorized battle, the native East Anglian Occasions newspaper reported.
Weeks earlier than he was reported lacking, Lynch instructed The Occasions newspaper of how he feared dying in jail if discovered responsible over the HP allegations.
“‘If this had gone the unsuitable means, it might have been the tip of my life as I’ve recognized it in any sense,” Lynch mentioned within the interview with The Occasions.
“It is weird, however now you’ve a second life – the query is, what do you wish to do with it?” he added.
