(Publicis Groupe CEO Maurice Lévy.Wikimedia, CC)
At 11 last night Publicis Groupe CEO Maurice Lévy went to bed comfortably certain Britain was going to vote to remain in the EU.
But when he awoke this morning at 4 he was "stunned" and unhappy to see that Britain had voted, by a slim 51.89% majority, to leave.
"I was stunned to the point that it did exactly feel as if I had no legs," Lévy told Business Insider. "It was terrible news. It's terrible for the future of Europe, for the future of the UK, and I believe the UK will suffer more than Europe."
The Paris-based advertising CEO said he respects the "decision of the people" but regrets that people often get it wrong.
There's one possible positive effect: "What I'm hoping is that the Europeans will take this as a wake-up call and they will regroup and they will start to work on an enthusiastic project for the future and for the youth of the European people. I'm really hoping that this is what we will be seeing."
Markets went into turmoil after the referendum result was announced on Friday. The British pound fell to a 30-year low. Publicis Groupe's stock was down 4.9% at the time of this writing.
Lévy is confident the Brexit won't have "much consequence" on his business, which has a large presence in the UK.
"We pay our salary, we pay the charges, we pay the costs in British pounds and we receive the revenue in British pounds, so it is limited only to the profit we are making in that country," Lévy said. "The UK will have a currency which will be relatively low, so it will probably mitigate some of the consequence that they get because their product will be cheaper and they will be able to export. Therefore the economic crisis that people are expecting will probably not be that tough."
It will be "much tougher psychologically," Lévy thinks, adding that the situation will be complicated in the long-run. To that effect, he immediately wrote a letter to his teams in the UK on Friday to reassure them that Publicis sees the UK as "a long-term investment, we are not there just to play games."
Lévy on Cameron: 'There are not words tough enough for his legacy'
(British Prime Minister David Cameron at a news conference during an EU leaders summit in Brussels in 2015.REUTERS/Francois Lenoir)
British Prime Minister David Cameron — who had wanted the UK to remain in the EU but had nevertheless been the man to call the referendum — announced his resignation following the results on Friday.
Lévy said: "The fact that Cameron has left is not really something interesting. He is responsible to history for what happened. History will judge him, and I think there are not words tough enough for his legacy."