The former Mayor of New York repeated his claim that ‘Brexit isn’t smart’ but admitted London will remain Europe’s financial capital as a major Swiss bank admitted it is unlikely it will leave the capital.
Earlier this week MrBloomberg, who ran New York between 2002 and 2013, branded Brexit ‘the stupidest thing any country has ever done’, apart from the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency.
Mr Bloomberg, who is worth an estimated £40billion, admitted to the Times that financial centres have to be ‘family friendly and English-speaking’, meaning the City will continue to thrive.
Mr Bloomberg said: “London will still stay the financial capital of Europe. To be a financial centre you have to be family friendly and English speaking. English is the business language.
“And family friendly means communications and transportation and culture. London and New York are the only two cities that qualify. There are just not any other cities that have what these two cities have and that is not going to go away short-term.”
It comes as Swiss bank UBS admitted it is “more and more unlikely” that it will move 1,000 jobs from London post-Brexit.
According to the Financial Times, UBS has received “regulatory and political clarifications” making the jobs move more unlikely.
UBS chief executive Sergio Ermotti warned in January up to a fifth of the bank’s 5,00 London staff could be moved to the EU post-Brexit if Britain lost access to the common market and already has licences needed in Frankfurt to carry on its EU business.
Mr Bloomberg, the world’s tenth-richest man, amassed his fortune through the financial information and media firm which bears his name.
This week the company opened its new £1billion headquarters in London, where 4,000 employees will work – with room for 4,000 more.
The tycoon also told the media he would still have built the offices had he known Britain would be leaving the EU.
Mr Bloomberg, who reportedly considered running for US President last year, was quick to lash out at the UK during the opening of his new media headquarters in London.
He said: “It is really hard to understand why a country that was doing so well wanted to ruin it.
“What they are doing is not good and there is no easy way to get out of it because if they don’t pay a penalty, everyone else would drop out.
“So they can’t get as good of a deal as they had before.
“I did say that I thought it was the single stupidest thing any country has ever done but then we Trumped it.”
In an interview published by the Times today, Mr Bloomberg branded Brexit and Mr Trump’s election ‘populist movements’ which are not in the interests of the UK and US.