As stated in answer 23, in February 2016, 36 of Britain's top companies signed a letter to The Times arguing for Britain to stay in the EU. But almost two-thirds of the 100 top companies did not sign. Those that declined to sign included Barclays, Sainsbury's and Tesco.

Other huge companies, such as Toyota, General Motors, BMW, Volkswagen, Airbus, Jaguar, Land Rover, Honda and Ford have all stated their ongoing commitment to UK manufacturing, whatever the result of the Referendum. John Mills, the millionaire Labour donor and founder of John Mills Ltd (JML), supports Brexit, as do Joe Foster and John Caudwell, the founders of Reebok and Phones 4U respectively.

On 17th February 2016, 80 business leaders, including Pasha Khandaker, President of the UK Bangladesh Caterers Association, Moni Varma, owner of rice suppliers Veetee, and Tariq Usmani, CEO of Henley Homes, wrote to the Prime Minister saying that Britain "was damaging trade with the rest of the world". They continued, "As long as Britain's trade policy is controlled by the EU, we cannot sign bilateral free trade agreements with Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Australia, New Zealand, or for that matter any other non-EU state". They added, "Vested interests on the continent sustain a relatively protectionist policy. We apply the EU's common external tariff to exports to Commonwealth countries - hurting customers and consumers here".

Aircraft maker Boeing chose Britain for its new European headquarters in March 2016. Sir Michael Arthur, President of Boeing UK and Ireland, stated that "The prosperous partnership between our country and our company goes from strength to strength". Boeing employs 2,000 staff in the UK and has invested £1.8 billion here.

Interestingly, in 2013 Jim O'Neill, the former Chairman of Goldman Sachs' asset management business said, "We should not be scared of leaving it [the EU] and exploring a world without it. The opportunities that arise from a dramatically changing world are huge and I don't think that a lot people in our area, never mind in Brussels, are that interested or understand it".