Peter Hargreaves, one of Brexit’s biggest supporters, has plenty to celebrate.
The Conservative Party’s victory didn’t just make Britain’s departure from the European Union certain. It also provided a $300 million boost to his fortune on Friday as investors welcomed the result.
The Lancashire-born billionaire owns about a third of Hargreaves Lansdown Plc, whose shares rose 4.1% as of 12:40 p.m. in London, boosting the value of his stake to $4.1 billion and his overall fortune to $4.6 billion.
“I’m very relieved,” Hargreaves said, while blaming the Labour Party’s disappointing showing on Jeremy Corbyn’s lack of appeal. “I was in contact with lots of friends in the North and they were quite surprised how many Labour voters in the North weren’t going to vote for Corbyn. They were petrified of Corbyn.”
His wealthy peers also had a bumper day. The 16 Brits on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index -- including Jim Ratcliffe and James Dyson -- added around $2.8 billion to their combined net worth on Friday.
Last night, Michael Spencer, the founder of interdealer broker Icap and longtime Tory donor, threw a celebration at Scott’s, the posh seafood eatery in London’s Mayfair district, according to a person familiar with the matter. About 200 guests toasted Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s triumph with Champagne. In a statement, Spencer said the result was a “crushing national repudiation of the dangerous and divisive neo-Marxist policies” embraced by Labour’s leadership.
Other tycoons were more relieved than festive.
“I don’t need to celebrate -- I’m just very, very happy with the result,” said John Caudwell, who founded Phones 4U, the mobile-phone retailer. “If Labour had got a majority or there was a hung parliament, which wasn’t impossible, I would have been devastated. Far from celebrating, I would probably have been in a corner somewhere sobbing.”
That sentiment echoed across the City of London after months of fearing a Corbyn victory would do even more damage to the British economy than a hard Brexit with no transition deal.
“Business in general will really appreciate the clarity,” said Jeremy Isaacs, financier and founding partner of private equity firm JRJ Group. “Markets should react positively that the Corbyn risk is gone and we should see foreign direct investment flowing into the country.”