Businessman Who Bankrolled Leave Campaign Has Lost £400m Since Brexit
A billionaire who donated £3.2m to the Leave campaign is now £400m worse off after Britain voted to Brexit.
Peter Hargreaves, founder of Hargreaves Lansdown, a financial advice firm, has seen shares plummet since Friday.
Despite this, the businessman says he has “no regrets” over his decision.
“The shares have suffered a fallout just as everything else has. Hargreaves Lansdown has fallen quite a lot,” he told the Guardian.
“I didn’t do this for personal gain. I thought it would first and foremost be good for Britain.”
Hargreaves, who is worth £2bn, is a supporter of the Leave.EU group and was Brexit’s largest backer in the terms of donations.
He has seen his business’s shares drop sharply from £13.89 to £10.56 since the vote was announced.
Since then, Britain has been stripped of its AAA rating and the FTSE 350 has lost £140bn.
However, Hargreaves, 69, is positive the fall in sterling, which yesterday hit a 31-year low, is a good thing.
“After we left the exchange rate mechanism in 1992, we rose from the ashes like a phoenix, and by 1997 had a trade surplus and a balanced budget. Why should it be any different now?
“Suddenly Britain’s much more competitive, even if they put tariffs up against us,” he said.
(Credit: PA)