Australian TV exec Neil Balnaves dies in luxury yacht accident

Millionaire philanthropist Neil Balnaves died at the age of 77 after getting into a boating accident aboard the luxury private yacht named The World.

According to Australian Financial Review, Balvanes died off the coast of Tahiti after the yacht got into an accident on Monday.

No details about the accident have been disclosed yet; the yacht itself is touted as the “largest, privately owned residential yacht on earth.”

Balnaves' tragic demise comes 20 years after he was involved in another boat accident which he said changed his life; it made him sell off his TV production business and turn into a notable philanthropist.

“I ended up having a pretty shocking accident in my late 50s. It was a boating accident that really flattened me and I took a year to recover,” he had told ABC Australia's Michael Cathcart in 2013.

The Balnaves Foundation reportedly donates over $3 million annually to “eligible organizations that aim to create a better Australia through education, medicine and the arts with a focus on young people, the disadvantaged and indigenous”.

The foundation has donated more than $40 million over its 15-year history.