Mike Lynch is missing along with his daughter, Hannah, though his wife has been rescued. Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of Morgan Stanley International, and Chris Morvillo, a lawyer at major firm Clifford Chance, are also among the missing.
British tech tycoon Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter are among six tourists missing after a luxury yacht sank in a tornado off the coast of Italy.
One person has been confirmed dead, believed to be the vessel’s Canadian chef, while four of the missing passengers are British and two American, according to Italian newspaper la Repubblica.
The Palermo Port Authority told Canadian broadcaster CBC News officials recovered the body of Recaldo Thomas, a Canadian-born man who had been living in Antigua.
The British-flagged yacht, called Bayesian, had 10 crew and 12 passengers on board and sank at about 5am local time off the coast of Palermo.
Salvo Cocina of Sicily’s civil protection agency said: “They were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
He added Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of Morgan Stanley International, and Chris Morvillo, a lawyer at major firm Clifford Chance, are among the missing.
Mr Lynch’s daughter, Hannah Lynch, also remains unaccounted for but his wife, Angela Bacares, was rescued along with 14 others – including a mother who held her one-year-old baby above the waves.
Charlotte Golunski, 35, told la Repubblica she lost her baby Sofia for “two seconds”, adding: “I held her afloat with all my strength, my arms stretched upwards to keep her from drowning.
“It was all dark. In the water I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I screamed for help but all I could hear around me was the screams of others.”
The girl’s father James Emsley also survived, Mr Cocina said. According to her LinkedIn profile, Ms Golunski is a partner at Mr Lynch’s firm, called Invoke Capital.
Mr Lynch, described as the British Bill Gates, was cleared earlier this year of conducting a massive fraud over the sale of software company Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2011.
His co-defendant in that trial, Stephen Chamberlain, was separately confirmed dead after he was hit by a car on Saturday.