A prominent hedge fund manager who donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to pro-Leave groups made £220 million overnight by shorting the pound on the eve of the Brexit referendum, Byline Times has revealed.
Crispin Odey, who also profited handsomely from the disastrous Liz Truss administration, donated more than £870,000 to groups advocating for a split with the European Union and then cashed in on the chaos it wrought in UK markets.
Along with his partner, James Hanbury, Odey maintained a close relationship with former Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg and was part of a group of some 300 hedge fund owners, investors and city traders who actively campaigned for Brexit and cashed in on the result.
According to Byline Times reports, he claims that he made a fortune of £220 million by shorting the pound and moving 65 per cent of his fund into gold in anticipation of the shock result in June 2016.
Hanbury, meanwhile, who manages £1.1 billion for Odey Asset Management, made £110 million.
The day after the vote, Crispin Odey told the BBC: “There’s that Italian expression – ‘Il mattino ha l’oro in bocca’ (the morning has gold in its mouth) and never has one felt so much that idea as this morning.”
While Odey and his partner profited handsomely from the split, Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, estimated that real household incomes have dropped by almost £1,000 since the Brexit vote.
The Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics forecast that the average household could lose between £2,519 to £5,573 per year from real incomes over the next 15 years.
It is believed the UK economy is almost £140 billion smaller because of Brexit.
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