Lynch was one of the 22 people sailing on board the £166,000 a week vessel, the Telegraph reported this afternoon.
He was hosting employees and business partners on the yacht, with the group sailing to the Aeolian Islands, Vanity Fair Italy reports.
Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, is among those who have been rescued.
A frantic hunt has now been launched for the missing six – which is made up of four Brits and two Americans, Italian paper Ansa reports.
The lifeless body of one victim, a Canadian cook who was part of the crew, has already been pulled from the Mediterranean, reports ANSA .
Lynch is a entrepreneur having founded and sold tech and software companies. He was awarded an OBE for his services to enterprise in 2006.
He was extradited to the US on fraud charges in 2022, the BBC reports, with a judge setting his bail at £79m, before he was later acquitted at trial.
Invoke Capital, one of Lynch’s companies has been approached for comment by The Sun.
The yacht is believed to have been flooded by water after a tornado off the coast of Porticello, near Palermo , just before 5am local time on Monday morning.
The cook’s body was tragically found underwater alongside the shipwreck by divers, reports Corriere Della Sera .
At least 15 people were saved by coast guards, patrol boats, firefighters and local fishermen.
Helicopters, divers, patrol boats and firefighters are all helping with the desperate search of the area.
An expert team of divers have already been able to locate the vessel 160ft below the water on the seabed.
Divers are now searching the wreckage Ruckas One sailor photographed the Bayesian only hours before it capsized Twitter/@Khorakhane100
Sicily is currently under a weather warning for strong winds.
Almost all of the 22 passengers and crew on board are said to have been inside their cabins and rooms when the weather took a turn.
A one-year-old British girl named Sophia was rescued by her mother in the sea after the sinking before they were rushed to hospital.
Mum Charlotte spoke about the frantic rescue, telling Giornale di Sicilia: “For two seconds I lost the baby in the sea, then I immediately hugged her again amidst the fury of the waves.
“I held her tightly, close to me, while the sea was stormy. Many were screaming.
“Luckily the lifeboat inflated and 11 of us managed to get on board.”
The father was also on board at the time of the horror ordeal.
I held her tightly, close to me, while the sea was stormy. Many were screaming
Charlotte
Charlotte managed to swim over to one of the rafts where she and her daughter were taken to safety along with 11 others.
The Bayesian sails under a British flag, according to a Facebook post Sunday evening.
The boat left the Sicilian port of Milazzo last Wednesday and was last tracked east of Palermo last night, according to tracking app Vesselfinder.
The charterers said there were 12 guests and 10 crew sailing at the time.
Many of them managed to escape their rooms before being forced to enter the sea, say Corriere Della Sera .
The yacht was said to have started to sink just off the shoreline with its anchor still down.
Local crews of fishermen quickly spotted the sinking vessel and managed to help raise the anchor along with two other sailing vessels, say local media.
The captain of another boat, Karsten Borner, said his own vessel had to be moved to manoeuvre past the Bayesian in the strong winds.
He said: “We managed to keep the ship in position, and after the storm was over, we noticed that the ship behind us was gone.”
The boat is managed by Camper and Nicholsons International.
A spokesperson for the company told the BBC they are “dealing with a situation on board one of [their] managed vessels”.
The Bayesian is owned by Revtom, a firm registered in the Isle of Man – according to Equasis, a maritime data service.
BBC Verify reported the boat was tied to Lynch’s wife with Bacares named as the sole legal owner of the company.
Who is Mike Lynch?
FORMER billionaire entrepreneur Mike Lynch is still believed to be missing hours after a £14m luxury yacht capsized in a tornado off the coast of Sicily.
The tech tycoon, dubbed “Britain’s Bill Gates”, was one of the 22 people sailing onboard the £166,000 a week vessel, the Telegraph reported this afternoon.
Lynch, 59, is a serial entrepreneur having founded and sold tech and software companies with one of his biggest being Autonomy Corporation.
He has also been involved in Invoke Capital and cybersecurity company Darktrace.
He was awarded an OBE for his services to enterprise in 2006.
Born in Ilford, Lynch had a firefighter father from County Cork and a nurse mother from County Tipperary.
Away from work, Mike is married to wife Angela Bacares and the pair have two children together.
Angela is among those who have been rescued on the superyacht.
In 2023, the Sunday Times rich list set the couple’s value at £852m.
But he was extradited to the US on fraud charges back in 2023 with a judge setting his bail at £79m.
Just weeks ago, Lynch was acquitted of criminal charges by a jury in San Francisco after a 12-year legal battle over the $11bn sale of his firm, Autonomy, to Hewlett-Packard in 2011.
The doomed yacht, named Bayesian, is also said to be owned by the Lynch family.
CCTV caught Sicily being battered with violent winds overnight Rail News 15 people have been rescued from the sinking PA
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