No benefit 10 years after Brexit vote, says CEO

The owner of Coventry Airport has said his firm is yet to see any financial benefit from Brexit, 10 years after the UK voted to leave the EU.

Steve Rigby is chief executive of the Rigby Group, a Warwickshire-based multinational company with interests ranging from technology, hotels and property.

He said he was in Italy in June 2016 when people voted to leave the European Union, with the United Kingdom leaving the trading bloc four years later, on 31 January 2020.

"I was genuinely surprised that the decision was taken. But I didn't have a huge amount of sympathy for those organisations that weren't prepared, because we did have four years to get that resolved," he said.

On 23 June 2016, the UK voted 52% to 48% to leave the EU, although it would take another four years, two prime ministers and a general election, to pass the legislation needed to enact the result of the referendum.

Rigby said: "We are yet to see an economic benefit from Brexit, a windfall, if you like. We continue to have a fiscal drag, estimated at 4-5% of our economy.

"We're sat here today, still feeling that Brexit was the wrong decision."

Last week, analysis of Bank of England company data suggested the British economy had taken a 6% hit from the effects of Brexit.

A forecast written a month before the referendum by the-then chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne, suggested the UK economy would suffer "economic shock" that would push the country in a recession and lead to a rise in unemployment.

While that didn't happen, Rigby said six years after the UK left the EU, companies like his were still coming to terms with new trading conditions.

The Rigby Group, which has its international headquarters in Stratford-upon-Avon and a turnover of £3.8bn, operates in nine countries and employs about 8,000 people.

It is also behind plans to build a gigapark at Coventry airport, which is owned by the firm, after ending flight operations earlier this month.

Rigby said despite the size of his company, because it operated in Europe, it had had to adapt to new trading conditions.

"What we have today is quite a lot of inertia. Inertia in government, in businesses, as people catch up to what is the opportunity," he said.

"It's a case of rebuilding your business, transforming your business."

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