Conservatives donor Peter Hargreaves has seen his wealth rise by $300m as Boris Johnson leads the party to victory in the UK general election.
Bloomberg calculated his wealth increased from $4.1bn to $4.6bn on Friday thanks to his one third stake in Hargreaves Lansdown. Shares in the D2C platform were up 4.1% at lunchtime on the day the final result came through.
The billionaire (pictured with Blue Whale fund manager Stephen Yiu) told Bloomberg Jeremy Corbyn’s lack of appeal was to blame for the Labour Party’s disappointing results, which saw them lose working class electorates that had traditionally been strongholds.
“I was in contact with lots of friends in the North and they were quite surprised how many Labour voters in the North weren’t going to vote for Corbyn. They were petrified of Corbyn.”
He said he was relieved at the election result.
He compared the next stage of negotiations with the European Union to a “game of poker”. “You have a hand that you’ve got to play well.”
