June 29, 2016

Branson: Chinese investors pulling out of UK over Brexit vote

June 28, 2016
Rob Davies

Virgin tycoon Sir Richard Branson has warned that Chinese business partners are already pulling investment from the UK after the EU referendum.

Speaking to The Guardian, he warned that last week’s historic vote will cost “thousands of jobs”.

Branson told my colleague Rob Davies that:

“I met with a group of Chinese businessmen yesterday morning who have invested heavily in England and who are now going to stop investing and withdraw investments they’ve already made.”

“I’m afraid that based on misinformation, people voted for Brexit, which is basically voting for a way of shooting themselves in the foot. The last 2 days has been absolute pandemonium worldwide in the markets, the pound crashing, the stock markets crashing, and we are heading rapidly towards a recession again. It’s just too sad, so so sad.

Branson also laid into the Leave campaign for misleading voters during the referendum campaign, saying “thousands and thousands” of workers will pay the price.

“Businesspeople do not want politicians to completely and utterly wreck the hard work they’ve done for years and years and that is effectively what happened. Thousands and thousands of jobs will be lost as a result of this. Thousands of jobs that would have been created will be lost and the knock-on effect will be so dire.

“The sad thing is I really think Brexiters were misled and did not realise.

People said it was scaremongering. It wasn’t scaremongering and the last 48 hours have proved that.”

As mentioned at 8.50am, Branson is pushing for a second referendum vote .

Branson’s Virgin Money challenger bank has been badly hit by the referendum result, with shares tumbling by 40% since Friday morning.

Click on Link:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2016/jun/28/brexit-3-trillion-stock-markets-sterling-ftse-business-live