Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife are among six people missing after a mega-yacht sank off the Italian coast on Monday morning, according to reports and officials. The couple along with the four others are now feared dead as authorities continue their search mission.
Bloomer is still missing after the Bayesian, a 184-foot luxury sailboat, capsized with 22 people on board near the port of Porticello following a tornado strike, according to Salvatore Cocina, head of Sicily's civil protection agency. His wife is also unaccounted for, The Daily Mail reported. British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, 59, and his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, also remain missing since the shipwreck.
Lost in the Deep Waters
The Italian agency also confirmed that Chris Morvillo, an attorney with the British law firm Clifford Chance, who represented Lynch in a major fraud case in California earlier this year, is among the missing, according to The Guardian.
Italian officials have confirmed the death of the ship's chef, Canadian-born Thomas Recaldo, whose body has been recovered.
Bloomer, who is reportedly a close friend of Lynch, is also the chairman of insurance provider Hiscox and was previously the CEO of Prudential, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Fifteen others on board, including Lynch's wife Angela Bacares, who owns the yacht, and a one-year-old girl, were able to escape the sinking vessel. The yacht had 10 crew members and 12 passengers on board when it sank.
Officials said that eight of those rescued were taken to local hospitals.
Charlotte Golunski, 36, saved her 1-year-old daughter, Sophia, by keeping her afloat in the turbulent waters as the ship sank.
Domenico Cipolla, the chief physician at Di Cristina hospital in Palermo, said that both the mother and daughter are recovering. "The baby is doing well," he said. "The mother is also in good condition, albeit with some minor abrasions. The father will also be discharged from the hospital soon.
"They have said that most of them were colleagues who worked for Lynch. They are deeply traumatized," he continued. "As time passes, they realize more and more that this morning they lost many friends."
Hopes of Survival Fading
The Italian coast guard dispatched divers to search for survivors in the wreckage, which lies about 160 feet underwater. Authorities suspect that some of the missing passengers might have been trapped in their rooms when the yacht went down, according to the BBC.
Lynch, a billionaire once described as the UK's answer to Steve Jobs, was acquitted of fraud charges by a San Francisco jury just two months ago. The charges were related to the 2011 sale of his software company, Autonomy, to Hewlett-Packard for $11 billion.
The trip was reportedly organized by Lynch to celebrate his legal victory, as reported by the Daily Mail.
In a surprising turn of events, Stephen Chamberlain, Lynch's co-defendant in the case, died on Monday after being hit by a car in Cambridgeshire, UK, according to Reuters. Chamberlain, who was the former vice president of finance at Autonomy, was 52 years old.
The Bayesian, built by Italian shipbuilder Perini in 2008 and last refurbished in 2020, is owned by a company called Revtom Limited, where Bacares is listed as the sole shareholder.
