'Britain's Bill Gates' Mike Lynch among missing after luxury yacht sinks off Sicily

Mike Lynch, CEO of Autonomy Group

UK's tech tycoon Mike Lynch, who is credited for creating the country's largest software firm 'Autonomy', is among the list of missing persons after a luxury yacht sank off Sicily.

The British-flagged "Bayesian", a 56-metre-long (184-ft) sailboat, was carrying 22 people and anchored just off shore near the port of Porticello when it was caught in bad weather, the Italian coast guard said in a statement. They said the missing persons included British, American, and Canadian nationalities.

"The wind was very strong. Bad weather was expected, but not of this magnitude," a coast guard official in the Sicilian capital Palermo told Reuters.

Who is Mike Lynch?

A celebrated technology sector entrepreneur and investor sometimes referred to as the British Bill Gates, Mike Lynch has won numerous awards and plaudits in Britain and beyond.

He sold Autonomy to HP for $11 billion in 2011, before the deal unravelled spectacularly following the acquisition, with the US tech giant accusing him of fraud. The University of Cambridge graduate had disputed all charges and denied any wrongdoing. He was acquitted of all charges in a San Francisco court early June.

Following his US acquittal, he had been critical of his prosecution in the United States. He had told the BBC that the only reason he was free was "because I had enough money not to be swept away by a process that's set up to sweep you away".

"You shouldn't need to have funds to protect yourself as a British citizen", he had said in the interview aired earlier this month. He said at the time that he was "elated" to be cleared in the criminal trial in which he denied any wrongdoing and blamed HP for botching the integration of the two companies.

With Inputs from AFP, Reuters