Wilbur Ross: If U.K. Leaves Europe It Will be a 'Madhouse'
WL Ross & Co. Chairman Wilbur Ross on the Microsoft CEO's efforts to resolve the company's antitrust issues in China, efforts to improve trade with China, the 2016 presidential race and the market outlook.
With the U.K.’s June 23 referendum on whether the country will exit the European Union, also dubbed ‘Brexit’, approaching, Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross, is getting anxious.
“I think there’s a lot of things to worry about. To me the biggest worry coming up near-term is the Brexit, the potential for the U.K. pulling out. That would really be a madhouse if it happened,” Ross told the FOX Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo.
Ross also pointed out a twist in who is the most supportive of the exit from the EU.
“And what’s strange about it, in Scotland it was the young people that wanted to break away from the U.K., young people idealist and patriotic and all that. In U.K., it’s the reverse, it’s the old people who want to pull out and the young people know there will be a half a million or so unemployed people if they break out,” said Ross.
In his opinion older people in the U.K. are committing ‘financial suicide’ by supporting ‘Brexit’, according to Ross.
“More than 70% of the people over 45 years of age in U.K. own their own home. If you have half a million people laid off in the recession that would follow a British exit, those house prices will collapse and a house is usually the main asset that any family has” Ross said.
If the U.K. does vote to leave, Ross says there would be major complications in other regions of the world.
“There would be a domino effect, for sure the Scottish exit would come back up again, you know the Spaniards will have the problem with Catalonia, Germany, you’ll have all these extreme parties, Euro-skeptic parties, get together,” Ross said.
Ross then compared Britain’s potential exit to the previous concerns over a potential Greek exit from the EU.
“If you had a big country like U.K. pulling out, remember the EU was hysterical over the danger of Greece pulling out. Well Greece is a pimple compared to the U.K. To the degree the fears were at all justified for Greece, got to be ten times as dangerous with the U.K.” said Ross.