SYDNEY, June 5 -- Controversial Australian business tycoon Alan Bond passed away Friday following complications from heart surgery on Tuesday.

Local media reported that Bond never regained consciousness after heart surgery despite efforts of medical staff at the intensive care unit at Fiona Stanley Hospital in Perth, Western Australia.

Bond was one of Australia's most prominent business figures for more than a decade, however his business empire crumbled in the 1990s.

Bond was personally bankrupted in 1992 for 622 million Australian dollars (479 million U.S. dollars), the second largest in history.

Bond was convicted for what was Australia's biggest corporate fraud and jailed for four years in 1997 for skimming 1.2 billion Australian dollars (924.1 million U.S. dollars) from his then- public listed company Bell Group to prop up his ailing Bond Corporation.

Bond was part of the Australian syndicate that won the America' s Cup Yacht Race against the New York Yacht Club in 1983, breaking the United States' 132-year stranglehold on the title, the longest winning streak in the history of sport.