Billionaire investor George Soros said on Saturday that Britain's vote to leave the European Union makes "disintegration of the EU practically irreversible," and that the effects of Thursday's referendum will likely damage Britain.

"Britain eventually may or may not be relatively better off than other countries by leaving the EU, but its economy and people stand to suffer significantly in the short to medium term," he wrote in a commentary on the website Project Syndicate.

Soros made huge profits in 1992 by betting against the British pound as it was withdrawn from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. --Reuters