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Perini Navi, the Italian superyacht builder behind Mike Lynch’s Bayesian, has been put up for sale by its parent company The Italian Sea Group, which has called for offers by 15 September as it attempts to stave off collapse.
TISG said last week it was offering Perini Navi for sale alongside its Admiral, Picchioti and Tecnomar brands and its shipyards at Carrara and La Spezia, after receiving “numerous unsolicited expressions of interest”.
Lynch, the technology entrepreneur known as Britain’s Bill Gates, died when the Bayesian sank off the coast of Sicily in August 2024, along with his teenage daughter Hannah and five other victims. The £30m yacht was built by Perini Navi in 2008.
TISG, a collection of luxury shipbuilding brands, bought Perini Navi out of bankruptcy in 2021 under a plan to revive it. Since the sinking, the group’s share price has slumped and its sales have collapsed.
The group has also been hit by a financial scandal after it discovered significant cost overruns on major projects run by senior executives. Giovanni Costantino, its chief executive and majority owner, resigned last month in a move that will lead to the departure of the company’s entire board.
It is unclear how much TISG might fetch for Perini Navi, one of the biggest names in luxury yacht building.
Last year TISG sued Angela Bacares, Lynch’s widow, for €456m (£390m), claiming its sales had collapsed since the Bayesian sank. The lawsuit, against Revtom, Ms Bacares’s Isle of Man-based company that owned the yacht, said Perini’s value had fallen since the sinking and that sales had dropped to zero.
“Not only has TISG been unable to sell a single Perini-branded yacht, seeing the ship owners involved in ongoing negotiations vanish, but it has also stopped receiving a single expression of interest from the group of international brokers with whom it collaborates,” the company said at the time.
Sources close to the Lynch family described the lawsuit, which also targets members of the Bayesian’s crew, as “cynical” and “desperate” after it was filed. It is not clear whether Revtom has responded to the claim or how far the case has progressed.
The sale comes amid continued dispute over responsibility for the sinking. Britain’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch has pointed to “vulnerabilities” in the yacht in its interim report, while local reports have said Italian authorities are focused on the actions of the crew.
Two criminal investigations into the sinking have been opened in Italy. According to Italian media, prosecutors have pushed for an expert report into what went wrong to be delivered by the second anniversary of the tragedy, which falls this Wednesday, 19 August. Prosecutors are expected to decide whether to bring charges once the report is filed.
Lynch died weeks after being acquitted of US criminal charges over the $11bn (£8bn) sale of his software company Autonomy to Hewlett Packard in 2011. He had earlier been found liable for fraud by the High Court in a civil case brought by HP, and this year a judge said HP was owed £920m, a sum that would bankrupt Lynch’s estate. Administrators are seeking permission to appeal against the ruling.
