“Assets are already more realistically priced, this time by default rather than design. We have always loved assets like utilities that are long term. Investors like me buy long-term businesses.”

YTL shares fell 1.9 per cent at 11:30 am in Kuala Lumpur on Monday, in the wake of Brexit, but still up 5.4 per cent from the year’s low in January. Data compiled by Bloomberg show that acquisitions and investments announced in Europe for the utilities industry last year totaled USD21.6 billion, a far cry from the USD76.4 billion in 2008.

YTL, which snapped up a British utility over a decade ago when Enron Corp. went bust, is looking for infrastructure utility assets in the UK “at bargain prices over the next two to three years”. “I have been lamenting at the lack of opportunities over the past eight years, and perhaps this, sadly is a trigger for it,” added Yeoh.

The company, which has properties besides utilities in Britain, expects the prices of assets it’s eyeing to nosedive post-Brexit.

Britain has the best “transparent and coherent” regulatory framework for foreign investments, said Yeoh. “I am not worried about my investments in the UK. We don’t speculate in currencies and eventually it will even out in the long term. Brexit could be a catalyst for EU and the world to reform their regulatory framework.”

“Immigration would be a huge problem in the future if infrastructure needs are not built.”

He expressed confidence that his company will be quite busy for the next two or three years, “especially now that the opportunity has come back”. The people’s anger, continued Yeoh, stems from infrastructure needs not being built quickly enough.

YTL bought Wessex Water Services Ltd. in 2002 and has interests from Australia to China, owning power plants, shopping malls and infrastructure projects. Other investments in the UK are the Gainsborough Hotel in Bath and the former Filton airfield in Bristol. Filton is noted as the site where the supersonic Concorde was largely designed and built in the UK.