NOW he tells us! Goldman Sachs boss confesses he was wrong about Brexit
(bet he wishes his bank hadn’t handed over £500,000 to Remain)
THE millionaire boss of Goldman Sachs has finally admitted he was wrong about the Brexit vote, and that predictions of economic collapse have proved inaccurate.
In a remarkable about turn, Lloyd Blankfein – who was an ardent supporter of the campaign to stay in the European Union – said Britain was faring far better than he feared it would.
‘I am wrong because I would have thought there would have been a worse outcome by now,’ the American admitted.
‘The UK economy is slower than Europe but not by that much.’
It represents a major U-turn from one of the most high-profile corporate backers of the Remain campaign.
Goldman was part of a coalition of big businesses which desperately fought against Brexit, and the bank even donated £500,000 to the cause.
Mr Blankfein, who earned £15.5million last year alone, has since repeatedly taken to Twitter to demand a second referendum. In October, as he left the rival hub of Frankfurt, he wrote: ‘ Great meetings, great weather, really enjoyed it. Good, because I’ll be spending a lot more time there.’
A month later, the boss added: ‘ Here in UK, lots of hand-wringing from CEOs over Brexit. Better sense of the tough and risky road ahead.
‘Reluctant to say, but many wish for a confirming vote on a decision so monumental and irreversible. So much at stake, why not make sure consensus still there?’ It makes the 63-year-old’s admission yesterday that the economic fallout is not what he feared even more striking.
His bank, meanwhile, is forging ahead with construction of a new 800,000sq ft European headquarters in the City – the size of nearly 18 football pitches. It employs more than 6,000 in London and is expected to move a few hundred at most into other countries.
Mr Blankfein used an interview with political news service Politico yesterday to stress that Goldman is still committed to London. But still he could not resist injecting a note of pessimism about the future.
‘We are building a big building [in London] for more than £1billion,’ the banker said. ‘ We are going to keep that building – the math works – but that’s not the same thing as saying if we knew four years ago we wouldn’t have delayed that decision or maybe we wouldn’t have made the same decision at all.
‘I thought there would have been a more dramatic effect by now. As of now the effect hasn’t been dramatic, but you couldn’t tell from the way our building is going up – but three years from now – decisions are being made today that might result in less economic activity so there may be a lag.’
The New Yorker, who infamously claimed that he was doing ‘God’s work’ during the financial crisis caused by casino banks including his own, still insisted that leaving the EU will cause disruption.
He said: ‘We are an industry that needs to make a pretty radical adaptation depending on the outcome.’
However, Mr Blankfein accepted that no other European city will be able to knock London from its position as continent’s only global hub for finance. He said: ‘This is not a winning or losing game. It might well be that the UK should remain and be encouraged to remain not the exclusive financial centre but a dominant financial centre for Europe.’
Mr Blankfein’s grudging admission there has been no apocalypse echoes unguarded remarks made by David Cameron at the annual gathering of the global elite in Davos, Switzerland earlier this year. He was caught on camera saying: ‘It’s turned out less badly than we first thought.’ It came as David Davis warned Brussels that MPs would not sign off on the £39billion divorce bill without a trade pact. The Brexit Secretary said Parliament was ‘unlikely’ to agree the withdrawal deal unless it is a ‘substantive’ agreement.
‘ The withdrawal agreement involves payments of up to £39billion,’ he said. ‘It’s a lot of money and Parliament is unlikely to sign off such a deal unless we can be pretty substantive what’s going to be there in the long run.’
‘The effect hasn’t been dramatic’