Guy Hands, one of the UK's most prominent private equity investors who once described as the "the king of British private equity" by Reuters, thinks the European Union will disintegrate in 15 years' time. Europe is facing its biggest crisis since the Second World War, according to Hands, who founded Terra Firma Capital Partners. He said there is a perfect storm brewing – weak leadership, political extremism and record immigration. All this will tear apart the 28-nation trading bloc by 2030, he says. "I'm not sure in 15 years time the European Union as we know it will exist. And I'm pretty sure if it doesn't exist we'll have wars in Europe. Whether they're internal wars or wars between countries I don't know but as sure as night follows day, we'll have wars. And that really scares me," Hands told Bloomberg's Guy Johnson at a conference in London on Tuesday. "We have the right of politics in Europe raising its head and the left of politics in Europe raising its head. You know, those were dead for 20-odd years," he said, before adding that the centre of the political spectrum is now losing ground. "The consensus is breaking down on a nationalistic basis. It's breaking down on a political basis. And at the same time you have this enormous issue with migrants. I'm very nervous that Europe doesn't have the leadership to deal with this." His words echo those Jim Mellon – a Tory and UKIP donor with a net worth of around £850 million ($1.3 billion) – who told the BBC earlier on Tuesday that the Euro will implode within "10 to 15 years" as both France and Italy fall in to a Greece-like debt spiral. Hands made the comments at the same conference where UBS investment bank chief Andrea Orcel said he drills his young traders in catastrophe scenarios "every month, every week, every day." So it looks like the world is taking a slightly bearish turn. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: The one thing you can add to coffee for even more energy in the morning
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