One of Mike Lynch’s neighbours has described him as “generous, humble and full of integrity”, telling Sky News he will “leave a hole that cannot be filled” after his death was confirmed on Thursday.
Mr Lynch, 59, was confirmed dead by local authorities on Thursday after the Bayesian superyacht he was on with his wife and daughter sunk in the early hours of Monday.
Ruth Leigh lived next door to Mr Lynch and his wife Angela Bacares in Suffolk for 15 years.
She described them as “fantastic neighbours” and said the tech tycoon “never played on his position” and was “very friendly and down-to-earth” despite his fortune.
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Mike Lynch’s neighbour: ‘Words fail me’
“Even though they were wealthy and influential people there was never any airs and graces,” Ms Leigh told Sky News.
“He always went to the trouble of remembering your name, of asking after your partner or your children. From the very start they were fantastic neighbours – very friendly and down-to-earth.
“He’d come from a very ordinary background and through his own brains and intellect, he’d made a really great company and come up with some incredible ground-breaking tech. He was always very moral. He gave to charity very generously and never played on his position.”
She described his death so soon after the end of his legal troubles as “the saddest thing I’ve ever heard”.
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“The whole point about this trip to Italy was taking his friends and family to say thank you. That’s what makes it even more tragic,” she added.
“Losing somebody so kind, compassionate, and full of integrity must leave a hole that cannot be filled.”
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Who is Mike Lynch?
Mr Lynch was extradited to the US and spent a year under house arrest in San Francisco before he was cleared of 15 charges of fraud earlier this summer by a jury.
Prosecutors claimed he deliberately overstated the value of Autonomy, the company he founded in 1996, when he sold it to Hewlett Packard in 2011. He always denied wrongdoing.
His former colleague has told Sky News he had a “brain the size of a planet” and was a “lovely man”.
David Tabizel co-founded Autonomy with Mr Lynch and the pair remained good friends. He described him as a “remarkable individual” and the “brightest man I’ve met in my life”.
“He was a lovely man,” he told Sky News. “He had a remarkable set of personality traits that we rarely see in Britain.
“Before him there was no British tech scene. He showed us we can be world-class.”
Mr Tabizel told of Mr Lynch’s “inner child”, that he “loved video games”, had a life-size train set in his garden, and how they animated a cartoon dog for their office, for which they both recorded the “barking noises”.
Commenting on his legal struggles, Mr Tabizel said he “never heard him lie or exaggerate” and he was “interested in the truth… in cutting through the noise”.
“For him to be accused of manipulating his profits. It was an extraordinary thing. It just wasn’t Mike.
“I loved that man and he should be celebrated as a hero.”
David Yelland, Mr Lynch’s former PR adviser and former editor of The Sun newspaper, has paid tribute to him in a post on X.
He said: “All those that knew and loved Mike are thinking of Angela and their surviving daughter Esme as they struggle to come to terms with such unimaginable loss.
“We have lost a man who was failed in life by his country and his peers when he needed them most – as he looked for help in the unjust US demand that he be extradited – and he has then suffered the most unfair and brutal of fates.”
Mr Yelland said he had spoken to Mr Lynch just before he set sail on the yacht.
He also described him as a “dreamer of dreams not just for himself but for all those that knew him, worked with him or invested with him”.
The entrepreneur had “exciting plans to contribute much more to the country he loved,” he added.
Image: Bayesian superyacht. Pic: Danny Wheelz
His wife survived the disaster but their 18-year-old daughter Hannah is still missing.
Six people are now confirmed to have died on the yacht – Morgan Stanley chairman Jonathan Bloomer, his wife Judy Bloomer, American lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda, and on-board chef Recaldo Thomas.
Lord Browne, former chief executive of BP and now chairman of BeyondNetZero, said Mr Lynch was “the person who catalysed a breed of deep tech entrepreneurs in the UK”.
“His ideas and his personal vision were a powerful contribution to science and technology in both Britain and globally. We have lost a human being of great ability,” he wrote.
Image: Pictured in 2010. Pic: Shutterstock
‘Privileged to have known him’
Sky’s Ian King said he “feels very privileged to have known and spoken with Mike Lynch over many years”.
He described him as a “visionary and original thinker with a passion for building businesses”. “There are sadly too few like him in the UK,” he added.
The Royal Academy of Engineering, where Mr Lynch was a former council member, donor, and mentor, said it is “deeply saddened to learn of the death of Mike Lynch”.
Sending condolences to his family, they added: “Mike became a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2008 and we have fond memories of the active role he played in the past as a mentor, donor, and former council member. He was also one of the inaugural members on the enterprise committee.”
A spokesperson for technology industry group TechUK said: “Mike Lynch was a hugely significant and pioneering figure in the UK technology sector.
“Our hearts go out to all of the families and friends who have been impacted by these tragic events,” they said.
Image: Jonathan Bloomer of Morgan Stanley Pic: Hiscox/ Linkedin
Image: US lawyer Chris Morvillo Pic: Clifford Chance
Mr Lynch’s Autonomy software was based on Bayesian statistical inference – where his family’s ill-fated yacht got its name.
The software’s global success earned him a reputation as the “British Bill Gates” and enabled companies to trawl through huge swathes of data more efficiently.
His Cambridge thesis is thought to be one of the most-read pieces of research in the institution’s library.
There was huge outcry from politicians and business leaders when Home Secretary Priti Patel approved a judge’s extradition order for him to be sent to the US for trial in 2023.
The new owner of WH Smith’s high street chain has effectively been barred from launching a wave of mass store closures for at least 12 months amid plans for rapid restructurings at two other retailers it owns.
Sky News has learnt that WH Smith would have the right to cancel a year-long transitional services agreement (TSA) put in place with Modella Capital – which struck a deal to acquire the business in March – if it launched a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) before the first anniversary of the transaction’s completion.
The clause in the TSA, which enables Modella Capital to continue using WH Smith’s systems after it takes ownership, is significant, according to retail insiders.
WH Smith agreed to sell its 480 high street shops to Modella in a £76m deal, ending 233 years of high street history.
Modella plans to rebrand the chain under the name TG Jones after it takes control.
In recent weeks, Sky News has revealed plans drawn up by Modella to launch CVAs at both Hobbycraft and The Original Factory Shop, which it has owned for nine and three months respectively.
Both of those restructuring processes have put significant numbers of stores at risk, and industry executives say that, over time, a sizeable part of the WH Smith high street estate could also be at risk.
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A spokesman for Modella said: “We have a number of exciting plans for the future of TGJones.
“A CVA is not on the agenda, as it is a solvent business.”
WH Smith, which will become a pure-play travel retailer once the Modella deal completes, declined to comment further ahead of the completion of the sale.
The owners of Hovis and Kingsmill, two of Britain’s leading bread producers, are in talks about a historic merger amid a decades-long decline in the sale of supermarket loaves.
Sky News has learnt that Associated British Foods (ABF), the London-listed company which owns Kingsmill’s immediate parent, Allied Bakeries, and Hovis, which is owned by investment firm Endless, have been involved in prolonged discussions about a combination of the two businesses.
City sources said this weekend that the talks were ongoing, but that there was no certainty that a deal would be finalised.
Bankers are said to be working with both sides on the talks about a transaction.
A deal could be structured as an acquisition of Hovis by ABF, according to analysts, although details about the mechanics of a merger or the valuations attached to the two businesses were unclear this weekend.
ABF is also said to be exploring other options for the future of Allied Bakeries which do not include a deal with Hovis.
If completed, a merger would unite two of Britain’s best-known ambient food brands, with Allied Bakeries having been founded in 1935 by Willard Garfield Weston, part of the family which continues to control ABF.
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Hovis traces its history back even further, having been created in 1890 when Herbert Grime scooped a £25 prize for coming up with the name Hovis, which was derived from the Latin ‘Hominis Vis’ – meaning strength of man.
Persistent inflation, competition from speciality bread producers and shifting consumer habits towards lower-carb diets have combined to impair the bread industry’s financial health in recent decades.
The impact of the war in Ukraine on wheat and flour prices has been among the factors increasing inflationary pressures on bread producers, according to the most recent set of accounts for Hovis filed at Companies House last year.
The overall UK bakery market is said to be worth about £5bn in annual sales, with the equivalent of 11m loaves being sold each day.
The principal obstacle facing a merger of Allied Bakeries, which also owns the Sunblest and Allinson’s bread brands, and Hovis would reside in its consequences for competition in the UK market.
Warburtons, the family-owned business which is the largest bakery group in Britain, is estimated to have a 34% share of the branded wrapped sliced bread sector in the UK, with Hovis on 24% and Allied on 17%, according to industry insiders.
A merger of Hovis and Kingsmill would give the combined group a larger share of that segment of the market, although one source said Warburtons’ overall turnover would remain larger because of the breadth of its product range.
Nevertheless, reducing the number of major supermarket bread suppliers from three to two would be a test of the Competition and Markets Authority’s approach to such industry-reshaping mergers at a time when the watchdog is under intense government scrutiny.
In January, the government removed the CMA chairman, Marcus Bokkerink, as part of a push to reorient Britain’s economic regulators around growth-focused objectives.
An industry insider suggested that a joint venture involving the distribution networks of Hovis and Kingsmill was a possible, although less likely, alternative to a full-blown merger of the companies.
They added that a combined group could benefit from up to £50m of cost savings from such a tie-up.
In its interim results announcement this week, ABF said the performance of Allied Bakeries had continued to struggle.
“Allied Bakeries continues to face a very challenging market,” it said.
“We are evaluating strategic options for Allied Bakeries against this backdrop and we expect to provide an update in [the second half of] 2025.”
In a separate presentation to analysts, ABF described the losses at Allied as unsustainable.
The company does not disclose details of Allied Bakeries’ financial performance.
Allied also owns Speedibake, an own-label bread manufacturer.
Hovis has been owned by Endless, a prominent investor in British businesses, since 2020, having previously been owned by Mr Kipling-maker Premier Foods and the Gores family.
At the time of the most recent takeover, High Wycombe-based Hovis employed about 2,700 people and operated eight bakery sites and its own flour mill.
Hovis’s current chief executive, Jon Jenkins, is a former boss of Allied Milling and Baking.
This weekend, ABF and Endless both declined to comment.
Aston Martin is steering a path towards a twin-pronged pay row with shareholders as it grapples with the impact of President Trump’s tariffs on car manufacturers.
Sky News can reveal that the influential proxy voting adviser ISS is urging investors to vote against both of Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings’ remuneration votes at next week’s annual general meeting.
The pay policy vote, which is binding on the company, has attracted opposition from ISS because it proposes significant increases to potential bonus awards to Adrian Hallmark, the company’s new chief executive.
“Concerns are raised regarding the increased bonus maximums, which are built upon competitively[1]positioned salary levels and do not appear appropriate given the company’s recent performance,” ISS said in a report to clients.
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Aston Martin is also facing a meaningful vote against its pay report for last year – which is on an advisory basis only – because of the salaries awarded to Mr Hallmark and other executive directors.
The company’s shares have nearly halved in the last year, and it now has a market value of little more than £660m.
Despite the ISS recommendation, Aston Martin will win the vote by virtue of chairman Lawrence Stroll’s 33% shareholding.
The luxury car manufacturer has had a torrid time as a public company and now faces the headwinds of President Trump’s tariffs blitz.
This week it said it would limit exports to the US to offset the impact of the policy.
Aston Martin did not respond to a request for comment ahead of next Wednesday’s AGM.