To some it is a political disaster that will bring financial Armageddon. To others, Britain’s vote to leave the EU represents a golden opportunity. Business leaders want to make the best of it, even though most wanted to remain. But the experts so derided by Michael Gove are still concerned that the uncertainty created by leaving, and the prospect of two years of negotiations to achieve a settlement, will set the UK economy back and limit its ability to recover.

The fund managers

Emiel van den Heiligenberg, head of asset allocation at Legal & General Investment Management, which controls assets worth £757bn, says a recession is inevitable, and sterling will fall further. “We think this is pretty serious, and there are immediate economic costs. We think the UK will fall into recession, and there will be significant negative ramifications for the European economy as well.

“Why will there be a recession? Mainly because of the uncertainty that will surround both consumer spending and business investment. The negative impact of falling asset markets will have a further reinforcing effect on [falling] consumer confidence.

“There are no real positive outcomes from this. We are likely to see a sell-off in European banks, which were already in a weak position. What was already difficult for Italian banks has become more difficult, and the ECB does not have much room for flexibility.

“Until this week, investors were saying US interest rates were going to rise. But the chances of the Fed raising rates in 2016 are now out of the window.

“But over the five-to-10-year horizon, I think we shall see this is not a systemic crisis.”

Meanwhile Mark Dampier, investment director at Hargreaves Lansdown, the UK’s biggest financial advisers, sees it as an opportunity to make some money. The man who advises more small investors than anyone else in the UK says he personally is a buyer. “We have got to get used to the fact that politics will keep the market on a bumpy ride. But if you are investing for the medium term, then you’d be daft to sell right now.

“The FTSE ended on Friday actually higher than where it was a few days earlier. I think some perspective needs to be shown on this. It’s not exactly the end of the world. I started buying last week, and I shall be looking to buy over the next few days.

“What am I buying? Interest rates haven’t got a chance of going up, yet you can get a 5% yield on funds such as Marlborough Multi Cap.

“Both sides played it wrong with forecasts of a plague of locusts. What I’ve been most surprised at is how pessimistic the young are. I’ve been looking at what they are saying on Twitter. I’m an old git, but I’m much more upbeat about prospects than they are. People should stop being so miserable and get on with it. We will negotiate a trade deal with the EU.

“People are saying we could have a recession. If you are in the Remain camp, you will be saying so. There is a danger we end up talking ourselves into an awful situation. Yes, GDP growth may drop to 1%. But at least we now have a decision made.”

The economists

Lucrezia Reichlin, economics professor at London Business School and former head of research at the European Central Bank, says the EU is likely to play hardball with the UK in any negotiations.

“In the short term there will be more volatility. Later, the terms of negotiations over the split with the EU will become clearer and that could cause another bad reaction. I expect the EU to take a tough line with the UK to prevent protest groups across Europe arguing for their own split. You can see it in the deal struck with Switzerland, which gained access to EU markets but at the price of free movement of labour.

“But the real question is what happens five years from now, after the loss of access to the single market. There might be a gain from taking control of immigration, but jobs will be threatened when companies find it harder to export to Europe. Ironically, the people who voted for Brexit will probably be the biggest losers.”

Jonathan Loynes, chief European economist at Capital Economics, points out that much depends on the behaviour of markets and response from the Bank of England. The economics thinktank has maintained a neutral stance despite its chairman – the Telegraph columnist Roger Bootle – being a Brexit supporter.

“We have always felt that the negative impact of leaving has been overcooked. However, we are now entering a period of uncertainty that is not conducive to strong economic growth and there could be some immediate fallout from the expected decline in investment and trade.

“It’s for this reason we have cut our forecast for UK growth next year from 2.7% to 1.5%. But it depends how markets behave. More panic could force the Bank of England to cut rates, and the market says this is what investors are expecting.

“Yet the markets have proved relatively sanguine. Yes, the pound fell sharply, but the stock market only fell back to where it was a couple of days before. There was a realisation quite quickly that things are not going to change immediately and the Article 50 letter is not going to delivered until later in the autumn.”

Business leaders

Ian Cheshire, chairman of Debenhams and former boss of B&Q owner Kingfisher, says most retailers have hedged against a fall in the pound, so prices will remain steady for a while.

“But those areas where there is a high degree of long-distance sourcing, particularly from China, will see significant pick-ups in costs,” he says. This is because the value of the dollar, which many retailers use to buy stock in Asia, has risen against the pound.

“Some of those cost pressures will come out in prices but it will put pressure on operating costs over the next two years,” says Cheshire. “There is also uncertainty about what exactly happens next and that has not, historically, been good for business.

“Clothing is almost entirely outsourced and it’s the same for electrical products. In food there are more local elements but a big chunk comes from Europe. It’s hard to think of a sector that won’t be materially affected. This doesn’t help the UK high street.”

James Reed, chairman of recruitment firm Reed Group, says EU labour regulations are actually low down on his clients’ list of concerns, and that it is vital educated migrants maintain access to the UK labour market.

“We conducted a survey before the vote that found 63% of employers believed a Brexit would put jobs at risk and 67% said it would not lead to more jobs being created.

“The biggest issue is around investment and whether businesses will go elsewhere. I was in the City before the vote and a Chinese bank was talking about setting up in London if the UK voted Remain. Other employers have Brexit clauses in contracts that mean a vote to quit the EU makes it null and void, and I imagine these clauses are being triggered now.

“There are aspects of some [EU] employment regulations that were not too well thought out, but that is not something employers are concerned about. The problem was more that the Labour party failed to connect with its core voters and convince them the protection of employment rights comes to some extent from Brussels.”

Property experts

Guy Gittins, sales director at London estate agency Chestertons, expects a drought of properties on the market as people decide to rent out their homes or sit tight for six months while the dust settles.

“At the same time, cash-rich buyers, Europeans and people dealing in dollars could have a renewed appetite – we put out a company note to clients [on Friday] and had the biggest response we’ve ever had. We’ve registered a large number of buyers. As a result, prices should stay pretty much where they are – we may even see some gains in the super-prime market.

“On Friday morning I had a long call with one of the leading Middle Eastern banks and they said that they’d spoken to their investors who have a long history of buying in London and they still have just as much appetite as on Thursday. They hadn’t lost a single deal – not a single client had pulled out – and they asked us if we could draw up a portfolio for them to put to investors who will be visiting in a few weeks’ time.”

Richard Donnell, a director at property consultancy Hometrack, thinks prices in London, at least, could stagnate. “Probably about half of buyers don’t need to buy in any given year, and unless they need to I think people are going to sit on their hands. People will want to see if the Doomsday economic scenarios come true – but who knows when that will become clear?

“Looking back at recent external shocks to the market, events like the Russian rouble crisis in 1998 and 9/11, there have been falls in transactions – outside London these have dropped by about 5%, while in London it has been around 15%. I’d expect something similar now.

“Brexit or no Brexit, I think London had some problems. There is still about 25% of the [wider] housing market that’s below 2007 levels. We’ve had the boom in London and the south-east but elsewhere there were markets that still looked good value, and I thought there was a lot of upside to come in big regional cities if we had voted to Remain. It’s hard to see house-price falls if the economy doesn’t fall and unemployment doesn’t go up, but I would expect a rapid deceleration in growth in London. It could even come close to 0%.”