“Today, there are speculative forces in the markets much bigger and more powerful,” Soros said. “And they will be eager to exploit any miscalculations by the British government or British voters.”
‘Sobering Warning’
Prime Minister David Cameron referred in a Twitter post to Soros’s “sobering warning,” even as pro-Brexit Justice Secretary Michael Gove ridiculed the billionaire’s comments. “If economic forecasters were as reliable as doctors or airline pilots, then everyone would be a billionaire,” Gove told BBC Radio. “The truth is that economic forecasters like George Soros have got things wrong in the past.”
Soros rose to fame as the money manager who broke the BOE in 1992, netting a profit of $1 billion with a wager that the U.K. would be forced to devalue the pound and pull it from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. Soros said in the op-ed that he was “fortunate” to make a substantial profit for his hedge fund investors at the expense of the BOE and the British government.
The pound’s devaluation in 1992 “actually proved very helpful to the British economy, and subsequently I was even praised for my role in helping to bring it about,” he said.
Soros, who built a $24 billion fortune through savvy wagers on financial markets, returned money to outside investors five years ago and his New York-based firm, Soros Fund Management, now manages his own wealth.
“Brexit would make some people very rich, but most voters considerably poorer,” Soros wrote.