I speak to you as a hedge fund manager, as an asset manager. Not as the CEO of a British business, not in any other capacity. What I can tell you is how the market will react. You may not care. But you will.
There is a book, ‘Atlas Shrugged’. It is essentially a book about how we in the 1% hold up the Earth. We certainly in London subsidise the rest of the United Kingdom. You may think we don’t pay taxes. You’re wrong. And if we, Atlas, shrugs, then the earthquake will hurt others, not us.
Let me describe that to you. This is not project fear – I am telling you what my job is – to make money from the market – we are the ones who sell shares after 9/11. Call us vultures, whatever you want. We don’t use our money to make political statements. We are just telling it as it is. And I can tell you that after the vote on June 23rd, if there is an exit, we will push the Pound lower and sell stocks like it’s a crash.
Does that affect you…wait for it. As stocks fall, the panic will lead to other companies halting investment until they get some form of clarity. Falling stocks means less borrowing by companies for investment. Less investment means fewer jobs.
I am not giving you an opinion, I am giving you an expert view. And that is a fact. We and Atlas everywhere will sell the hell out of the Pound and British stocks. That is not a threat. I am just telling you how it is. Soros and others will do what I will do. We think alike on these things.
As we do, your job will be at risk. We don’t care about your job because it is not our job to care about your job. Yes you didn’t need another reason to hate hedge fund managers, but there you have it.
I know, you are brave patriots, fighting for your country and fear nothing. Yeah, good luck with that, remember 2008 when the market crashed or 1987? Or 2000? Bravery is fine, but money talks and money walks.
But think of us like this – we are the 1% who pay more in tax than everyone else pretty much put together. It is my money flowing to Europe, then back to Sunderland. Yeah, I know you want more and more of my money to be charged to tax. Well, my company at least is British so yeah after the bumper profits we expect in June if there is a Brexit, we will definitely be liable to more tax, because our profits will be so large. And then we are taking the rest of the year off. It’s how we roll, it’s what we do when we hit our profit targets. I should start a campaign – hedge fund managers for Brexit.
So the Brexiteers, go ahead. Our hedge fund jobs are secure. Go ahead, your job isn’t. Go ahead, make our day, make us as rich as Soros when he broke the Bank of England. It’s just a re-organisation of wealth, from your pension fund to our hedge fund.
Alpesh Patel
