Soros reverses historical stake and let winning with the pound

                

George Soros, the billionaire whose 1992 bet against the pound entered the history of the hedge fund industry, did not repeat the feat before the record drop of the coin, on Friday.

Soros remained "long position" for the currency before the UK referendum to leave the European Union, on Friday, not "speculated against the pound while defending the UK stay," said a spokesman in statement sent by e-mail on Monday.

"Because of their generally pessimistic outlook for international markets," Soros profited from other investments, the statement said.

In the days before the referendum that marked a break between the UK and the European Union, Soros warned that the pound could fall more than 20 percent against the dollar and that voters were grossly underestimating the true cost of Brexit.

The pound fell 8.1 percent on Friday, hitting its lowest level in more than three decades, and has further decline on Monday.

"Now the catastrophic scenario that many feared materialized, making the EU disintegration practically irreversible," Soros wrote on June 25, in an essay on the British referendum on the Project Syndicate.

"The consequences for the real economy will be comparable only to the financial crisis of 2007-2008."

Breaking the BOE

Soros rose to fame as the resource manager who broke the Bank of England (BOE, its acronym in English) in 1992 to get a $ 1 billion profit by betting that the UK would be forced to devalue the pound and to get her out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.

Soros said in an article in the British newspaper The Guardian last week, which was "lucky" to get a substantial profit for its hedge fund investors at the expense of the BOE and the British government.

Investors face months of uncertainty after the referendum. The mechanical and the UK exit conditions have not yet been determined and it is unclear how will the political leadership of the country during the negotiations after the resignation announcement of Prime Minister David Cameron.

"The United Kingdom may or may not come out relatively better compared to other countries leaving the EU, but its economy and its population suffer significantly in the short term and the medium term," Soros wrote in his essay of June 25.

Financial markets "are likely to continue in a turmoil as the long and complicated process of EU economic and political divorce is being negotiated," he said.