Superyacht sinking off the coast of Italy plus backstory

[Opti]

www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/superyacht-maker-s-ceo-bayesian-s-crew-made-an-incredible-mistake/ar-AA1pf93x?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=b4c4a93d8dbe4a519b20119e26123ff1&ei=19

I'm starting to wonder if karma or people with grudges are involved given the backstory. Long, so check the links because it is fascinating study of selling a company, company creation and culture into what happens when a larger company buys a more shady company. Curious what posters think of it all.

The body of British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch was recovered Thursday from his family's superyacht that sank off the coast of Italy after it encountered a sudden and powerful storm, authorities said.



After four bodies were recovered from the wreck Wednesday, Lynch's 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, remains the only person unaccounted for, Massimo Mariani, of Italy's interior ministry, told Reuters. Her body may have been swept out to sea, Mariani said.

Giovanni Costantino, the CEO of Italian ship manufacturer Perini, which made the ship in 2008, told Reuters on Thursday, "The boat suffered a series of indescribable, unreasonable errors."



He said the crew made an "incredible mistake" in not preparing for the storm, even though it was announced in a shipping forecast earlier. "This is the mistake that cries out for vengeance," he said.



Lynch, 59, was best known as the co-founder of Britain’s largest enterprise software, Autonomy, which was sold to Hewlett-Packard in 2011. He had invited his friends on the yacht to celebrate his acquittal in June of fraud charges related to the sale of Autonomy.

[Opti]

The HP-Autonomy lawsuit: Timeline of an M&A disaster
Feature
Aug 22, 2024
10 mins

www.cio.com/article/304397/the-hp-autonomy-lawsuit-timeline-of-an-ma-disaster.html

When Hewlett Packard bought knowledge management software firm Autonomy, it didn’t realize it was buying into a multibillion accounting cover-up. Shareholders sued HP, and HP sued Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch. Here’s how it played out over the decades.

Around the turn of the century, Autonomy Corporation was one of the darlings of the UK technology industry, specializing in knowledge management and enterprise search. It went on an acquisition spree in the early 2000s, driving up its revenue, before being swallowed itself by Hewlett-Packard in 2011, in a deal that valued it at over $10 billion.

But this rags-to-riches tale has a tragic ending.

In fact, the HP acquisition of Autonomy probably ranks among the most notorious failed mergers and acquisitions.

No sooner had the acquisition closed than revenue began to flag, prompting an internal investigation in which HP uncovered signs of past creative accounting at Autonomy. Rather than selling software to customers, HP said, Autonomy had been selling them hardware at a loss, then booking the sales as software licensing revenue.

That discovery forced HP to write down the value of Autonomy by more than $5 billion, triggering a wave of shareholder lawsuits.

August 2024: Neither Lynch nor Chamberlain are able to profit from their acquittal for long.
Lynch takes a trip on his wife’s luxury yacht, the Bayesian, with family and friends to celebrate the court victory, but a freak storm capsizes the vessel off the coast of Sicily.

[Opti]

This makes the story more interesting to me, but maybe not to other posters. Could not grab from Google, so here's the source article.

www.bbc.com/news/business-14584871

It Autonomy develops software that can extract useful information from "unstructured" sources such as phone-calls, emails or video.

That means its software can do things such as suggesting answers to a call-centre operator or monitoring television channels for words or subjects.

One of the strengths of its business is that in most of the areas in which it operates it has no competitors.

[Tiny]

He said the crew made an "incredible mistake" in not preparing for the storm, even though it was announced in a shipping forecast earlier. "This is the mistake that cries out for vengeance," he said.


I don't think they have all the parts for what caused the boat to sink so quickly - perhaps everyone on board did all the right things and disaster still happened. Maybe not.


I wonder how much of the fault is really on the crew and how much was on the passengers.

Did the billionaire "save money" or "do favors owed" by hiring an inexperienced crew? Or did the billionaire hire a "yes man" crew?

Did the billionaire not "take no" for an answer - so that the experienced crew was caught between telling their boss something he wouldn't want to hear (they needed to take precautions because of the weather report which would inconvenience the passengers for a period of time) and keeping their jobs (or being blacklisted from ever working on other uberwealthy boat crews)?

My mind went there because I read an opinion piece about the arrests in Matthew Perry's death. His personal assistant pleaded guilty. The opinion piece was about how this PA might have been between a rock and a hard place - how best to keep their job (and future jobs) and protect their employer, while slowly little by little having their moral/ethics compass compromised until the day doing what the boss says goes too far but they still do it (out of fear).

It's the same power dynamic in abusive relationships/marriages.

I imagine a Billionaire is not use to taking orders from subordinates (aka the crew of his superyacht) perhaps the crew did warn and pressure the passengers to head the weather warnings but got too much push back or were told they shouldn't "ruin the trip" or whatever... And then the unthinkable happened.

It's all my speculation.   I doubt there's some nefarious plot to get back at the billionaire.   I think this was a case of "wrong place, wrong time, wrong decisions made".   

[resolution]

The timing does seem awfully odd that his co-defendant was killed in an auto accident just a few days prior.

[Opti]

Aug 23, 2024 22:23:45 GMT -5 Tiny said:

He said the crew made an "incredible mistake" in not preparing for the storm, even though it was announced in a shipping forecast earlier. "This is the mistake that cries out for vengeance," he said.


I don't think they have all the parts for what caused the boat to sink so quickly - perhaps everyone on board did all the right things and disaster still happened. Maybe not.


I wonder how much of the fault is really on the crew and how much was on the passengers.

Did the billionaire "save money" or "do favors owed" by hiring an inexperienced crew? Or did the billionaire hire a "yes man" crew?

Did the billionaire not "take no" for an answer - so that the experienced crew was caught between telling their boss something he wouldn't want to hear (they needed to take precautions because of the weather report which would inconvenience the passengers for a period of time) and keeping their jobs (or being blacklisted from ever working on other uberwealthy boat crews)?

My mind went there because I read an opinion piece about the arrests in Matthew Perry's death. His personal assistant pleaded guilty. The opinion piece was about how this PA might have been between a rock and a hard place - how best to keep their job (and future jobs) and protect their employer, while slowly little by little having their moral/ethics compass compromised until the day doing what the boss says goes too far but they still do it (out of fear).

It's the same power dynamic in abusive relationships/marriages.

I imagine a Billionaire is not use to taking orders from subordinates (aka the crew of his superyacht) perhaps the crew did warn and pressure the passengers to head the weather warnings but got too much push back or were told they shouldn't "ruin the trip" or whatever... And then the unthinkable happened.

It's all my speculation.   I doubt there's some nefarious plot to get back at the billionaire.   I think this was a case of "wrong place, wrong time, wrong decisions made".   

I saw that as well about the PA and I agree it was a very tough position for her to be in. I definitely agree that sometimes powerful people abuse those who work for them or make them feel like their only choice is to agree to what the powerful employer wants. And you are correct I can see the crew deciding to cave because it's not their yacht. The timing felt weird, but I admit I forgot too about the very tall mast snapping off and all of it was very fast early morning when most people are generally sleeping.

[Spellbound454]

Water spouts happen all the time, they don't usually sink boats.

The tall mast is intact on the sea bed ..... though the fact that it was that tall could have been destabilising'

The Captain should have steered it into the wind or brought it in to shelter.

Most of the crew survived so they should be able to get to the bottom of it.



They are right to have an inquiry, it shouldn't have sunk

[Opti]

Aug 24, 2024 7:38:02 GMT -5 Spellbound454 said:

Water spouts happen all the time, they don't usually sink boats.

The tall mast is intact on the sea bed ..... though the fact that it was that tall could have been destabilising'

The Captain should have steered it into the wind or brought it in to shelter.

Most of the crew survived so they should be able to get to the bottom of it.



They are right to have an inquiry, it shouldn't have sunk

One of the details was the rudder was retracted somewhat instead of being fully out, which seems odd to me.

[Spellbound454]

 That discovery forced HP to write down the value of Autonomy by more than $5 billion, triggering a wave of shareholder lawsuits.

and he was found not guilty, which in the US is pretty unheard of.

So the question of whether or not the acquisition was right, is over.

[Tiny]

Aug 24, 2024 7:41:33 GMT -5 Opti said:

Aug 24, 2024 7:38:02 GMT -5 Spellbound454 said:

Water spouts happen all the time, they don't usually sink boats.

The tall mast is intact on the sea bed ..... though the fact that it was that tall could have been destabilising'

The Captain should have steered it into the wind or brought it in to shelter.

Most of the crew survived so they should be able to get to the bottom of it.



They are right to have an inquiry, it shouldn't have sunk

One of the details was the rudder was retracted somewhat instead of being fully out, which seems odd to me.

I read it would be common practice to anchor and retract the keel.  Something about when anchored not retracting the keel causes a lot of noise - which is especially bothersome for sleeping (and probably entertaining in the evening on board the boat while in port).    

I know nothing about boats. It's just what I read.   

[Opti]

Aug 25, 2024 20:26:39 GMT -5 Tiny said:

Aug 24, 2024 7:41:33 GMT -5 Opti said:

One of the details was the rudder was retracted somewhat instead of being fully out, which seems odd to me.

I read it would be common practice to anchor and retract the keel.  Something about when anchored not retracting the keel causes a lot of noise - which is especially bothersome for sleeping (and probably entertaining in the evening on board the boat while in port).    

I know nothing about boats. It's just what I read.   

It did happen around 4AM, so that would make sense. Its good they rescued most of them, but it is sad and a cautionary tale to me some were not lucky.

[Opti]

Aug 24, 2024 7:42:03 GMT -5 Spellbound454 said:

 That discovery forced HP to write down the value of Autonomy by more than $5 billion, triggering a wave of shareholder lawsuits.

and he was found not guilty, which in the US is pretty unheard of.

So the question of whether or not the acquisition was right, is over.

He had an exceptional lawyer. I never followed the case, but it seems weird they would bring the case if they did not have anything of value to present. 

[obelisk]

The crew and captain are liable, lets see how the court case plays out

[Spellbound454]

 He had an exceptional lawyer. I never followed the case, but it seems weird they would bring the case if they did not have anything of value to present

He shouldn't have been extradited in the first place.

Our extradition agreement with the US was meant to be for terrorism and matters of national security ...... not businessmen.

so it has been abused.

The dealings were done in the UK, using UK financial services..... if there was anything to stand trial for, it should be subject to British jurisdiction not the US,

Its also very one sided, we sent people to the US but when we ask for someone we get told ... "oh no, thats an American citizen"

The whole extradition treaty needs tearing up.

[Opti]

Sept 8, 2024 7:45:29 GMT -5 Spellbound454 said:

 He had an exceptional lawyer. I never followed the case, but it seems weird they would bring the case if they did not have anything of value to present

He shouldn't have been extradited in the first place.

Our extradition agreement with the US was meant to be for terrorism and matters of national security ...... not businessmen.

so it has been abused.

The dealings were done in the UK, using UK financial services..... if there was anything to stand trial for, it should be subject to British jurisdiction not the US,

Its also very one sided, we sent people to the US but when we ask for someone we get told ... "oh no, thats an American citizen"

The whole extradition treaty needs tearing up.

In November 2012, Hewlett-Packard announced that it was taking an $8.8 billion accounting charge after claiming "serious accounting improprieties" and "outright misrepresentations" at Autonomy;[2][3] its share price fell to a decades' low on the news.[31] Previous management in turn accused HP of a "textbook example of defensive stalling" [32]: 6  to conceal evidence of its own prior knowledge and gross mismanagement and undermining of the company, noting public awareness since 2009 of its financial reporting issues[32]: 3  and that even HP's CFO disagreed with the price paid.[1][32]: 3–6  External observers stated that only a small part of the write-off appeared to be due to accounting mis-statements, and that HP had overpaid for businesses previously.[1][33] Lynch said that the problems were due to HP's running of Autonomy,[4] citing "internecine warfare" within the organization.[34] Major culture clashes had been reported in the press.[1]



The Serious Fraud Office (United Kingdom), and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission joined the FBI in investigating the potential anomalies. In January 2015, the SFO closed its investigation as the chance of successful prosecution was low.[35][36][37]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Autonomy

HP overpaid for Autonomy losing roughly 75% of its initial perceived value, which probably drove all of this. This British citizen probably did questionable financial things but not in a manner it could be successfully prosecuted by the UK or the US.

[obelisk]

Another 3-5 years of litigations.  Windfall for the lawyers involved.