THE MILLIONAIRE NOBODY KNOWS

Hokitika Guardian, 12 January 1931, Page 3

THE MILLIONAIRE NOBODY KNOWS

ENGLAND’S MYSTERIOUS K.vl , l.i A. 4 . mention tne name of Sir John Beeves Ellerinan to the average wellinformed English business man and ho wili probably reply; “Oh, yes, I’ve heard of him, but never have seen him. lias pots of money—-ships and things.” ' And that is about all the information you will got. For tins man who has the King Midas touch, which seems to turn everything he handles to gold ingots, has one great, passion in life outside of big business—a bitter eternal, all-consuming hatred of publicity. To avoid it he shuns clubs. He is not a diner-out- He even drives home every day to eat lunch in his own dining-room. He is never interviewed. He never gives out statements. Photographs of him are as scarce as lien’s teeth.

■> Once a friend of mine, who runs a , big- news photo agency in London conducted a lot of diplomatic maii- . oeuvres in the endeavour to get a . snapshot of him. .Alter weeks of labour ; , he finally got; the magic message: i ’ “‘Sir. John will be photographed by oniiiof :yoiir. mew. • The • camera man must- be at: such a ■ place at such an hour—sharp to the dot. Hd must not ( say a word to Sir John;'He- must simply have his: camera ; ready, snap tlie picture, and go-'about bis business,” ' : "The photographer '/was on liana .mt the appointed hour ,blit alas! for his hopes; 'one of- Sir John’s seeertaries came oilt and said he was sorry, but . his chief was not feeling well and. did not choose to be photographed. So that was that. GIGANTIC DEALS. It’s not that lie is lonely. Sir John is a tall, sturdily-built man of (iH with ( a full beard in which the grey is now predominant. He is often said by those | who have seen him to look like the I late King Edward VII. But, as a matter of fact, lie-looks more like tlie ex-O.ar Ferdinand of Bulgaria. His antipathy to photographs is that the , newspapers of'London- would publis'n'j them every time he pulled one of his gigantic deals, and then people would know who lie was and point him out'' to their friends. As it/ is now. Sir -folio eiui do the Haroun al Rasdiid tiling and walk ! about the City without more than a 1 score of people knowing that they are i watching the richest man in tlie British Empire. He is estimated to be worth at least 40 million pounds, I “Mv business is my business and not i tlie newspaper! ’ business,” is the way he once put it. Back in 1851. one Johann .Herman .jJCjlqrniaii migrated from Mainhurg, .... Germany to Hull, , in Nortbern,.; lOng--} 'and, .settled down in business, married ' an Englislnvonian, Miss Aiuie Eliza-J bet.li Reeves, ,and prospered..as a mer-[ qipin,t. lie became a •. .B.ritisi) subject and, after a while,.,lie.,had a. soil. He --' named the boy -lolin after himself amh| - Reeves'-'af'tet the boy’s mother. ’ -He'gave 'hitn a good education and then- - bad ‘him trained for the- business 'ot, chartered accountant.- 1 lie story goes j that, when tlie lioy reached his" majority, his father gave him £20,000 !' and told him lie need expect nothing ! further from him. Young John started out on his work in Birmingham and then went to London to labour for a - firm of chartered accountants. He was a good bookkeeper and thought that after a while lie ought to be given a ( partnership. As he did not get it, lie formed a firm of his own and soon had some of the biggest business concerns London as his clients, John Reeves Ellernmn took part of his. £20,000 and doubled, it. About 1887 t,he HulL breweries were . for sale, ijiid EHeriiian, as an accountant,, lie,iped engineer their sale . to; H. Osborne O’Hagan.' That incident set Ellennan to think- , ing about breweries. And directly with some oilier., Englishman, he was a heavy- ■ investor in a great Milwaukee brewery Ellermau was made ehairinan of-' the aboard.. .. fa T . H , : sy : » ( Dgittc of American at a handsome jiriccy'For a time after, that Ellerinan interested himself in English breweries" and made -, ipore money. , A GREAT SHIPPING OWNER But the great turning-point in his career came a few years later, when Frederick Ley la ml, founder and chief owner of the Levland Steamship Lines ■ died. O’Hagan bought the. lines and invited the public to subscribe for its ] stock. He also formed a syndicate which undertook to buy all that the ( public did not take. In this syndicate were O’Hagan, - Ellerinan and Sir j 'Jhristopher Furness, later, to be Lord J Furness, a shipping king, who married J Miss Thelma Morgan, of New York, j Whem.the business of the lines was reconstructed, Furness became ehairinan ( and Ellerinan a director. 'As such he took particular interest in the Liver- ( pool offices, where the man business y was done. . Furness and Ellerinan were both ■strong and both stubborn men and it j was not long before they were at cross purposes. Furness resigned and Filerman became chairman. O’Hagan has since confessed that he saw this chnng ° > with a great deal of searohihg of heart | Furness had been brought up in the t . shipping business. ft was all new to s Ellerinan. But it must have been in his blood, bis ancestors having ionic ~ from the great shipping town of Ham- ( burg. | Howehci that may lie. he tool: tv hi ■ 1 -.

new lino like...;i duek.-tci water. ,He threw all his enoriiious eiiergy into the work and soon agreed with the' firm’s Liverpool managers- that large; cargo ships ftere -the tilings of the future. He launched the company on a big shipbuilding .programme and pledged not only the company’s credit with shipbuilders, but stood back of the programme by pledging hundreds of thousands of bis own growing fortune. For several years there was a boom in the shipping business and things prospered. Then came a lean time in the entire shipping world and stocks fell in market price. Ellennan was so confident of the future of the line that lie bought practically every share of common stock that was offered. ' COLLECTOR' OF SHARES. "Eventually lie thus became owner of the great majority of the common stock. Once O’Hagan twitted him about it. He replied: “You devote a good deal of your time and money to a beautiful collection of ancient coins. Well, I collect Ley laud shares.” Becoming the chief owner of the Leyland Lines, Ellerinan determined to make it rank on the ocean with the great transatlantic companies and the Royal Mail and Peninsular and Oriental. He bought the West Indian and Pacific Line and was in the.markyt,.for. the Atlantic Transport Steamship Company, but tliis fell through: , But like so • much that happened to this man, this proved a lucky failure. For a'year later steamship interests hacked h.v J, P. Morgan aiul C0.,-bought the Levland Lines' and Ellerinan-'.cleaned up £I,2()J;OQ!>. • .'.

With these profits and .the .balance ot his fortune in •'•hand,- lie now definitely turned llis entire- attention for the'tmie being to' shipping. "He-founded' the Flierniah ' Lino's; with the result that, to-day lie is'one of the greatest shipowners the world has known since the. day when Noah owned the ark. It is estimated that he controls over two million tons of ships. I The Ellerinan . Lines own and operate a great many individual shipping coni- ' panics. There is the Fllernian Linens such —with 21' ships plying between Great Britain and the Mediterranean ports; F'lerman’s Wilson Line, with 4b ships going front Great Britain to India,.. Scandinavia.,. Portugal, tlie .ii.edi,terra lien 11 .. ports • -.a ml to R ussia ; WiLon’s and North-east Railway Shipping Co., with six ships going from Hull England, to Antwerp, Dunkirk and Lhimburg ; the City Line, with 2b ships from Glasgow and Liverpool, to India ;the Hull Line, with b 7 ships from Liverpool, London and Glasgow to Egypt;.- Red Lea ports, India, FastAfrica. Ceylon and Burundi ; Urn Pnpnyanni Line, \'.ith six ships Irorn England to Algiers, Malta, Egypt and j Turkey ; the Westeott and Laurance Line./ with 31 ships from England to Mediterranean ports; and, finally, the Idlernuiii and 'DueknaH Staeiiiship,Co., with 2 f ships from ’England to Australia, from Australia to South Africa, from India to America, from England tV> virtually all the world. Having become a wizard, in tlie .ship-., ‘ping game .lie was" of great service, to tlie ' BritisTi G.oyeriinient/ botli in . tlie liber War-Jind. in .the Great. War as. unadvised' on., shipping, , . lie was created a baronet in-IflOb; Re became a great friend of the late Lord Nortlicliffe. As a result, lie became a heavy holder of stuck in the “Daily Mail” and joined with N’ortlicliffe iii his, purchase of the London “Times.” When that fspnous pa]K*r was sold to Major J. J. Astor Ellerman also disposed of His shares.

After the death of Lord Nortlicliffe lie also sold his “Daily Mail” shares a' a big profit and thus got out of the daily newspaper game entirely.

Then he made a new plunge. He became practically the undisputed master of the British illustrated news ariduspciiety magazines. He bought the ‘‘Sphere,” the “Sketch,” the. ‘"Taller,the illustrated “London News.” “Eve,” and the illustrated “Sporting and Dramatic News.” As lie did tint pretend to understand the magazine game, lie kept the staffs practically intact.' But about three yeaVfr ago ho ■sold the whole flock of magazines 1/> the Jnveresk Paper Co. Various figures have 1 bCeii. quoted, hut all agree that Sir John sold but at a . handsome profit. 'then this restless man went off on a. new tack. He suddenly' became one of the greatest ground landlords in London. He bought the' Cadogan and Hans estates in the Chelsea district of London if or a very large figure. In IPi'y a company, of which he is one of the main owners, paid .£3,000,000 lor -•!() acres of choice real estate in Great Portland Street. Jn August, 1920, after the death of Lord lveagli, he bought from the heirs 82 acres in the South Kensington district of London for £1,000,000. This purchase alone involved 1,500 residences, shops, warehouses and bars. Sir John has two children, a son John Beeves Ellermjm, who is heir to his title and who becomes of age this year, and a daughter, Winifred, who married Robert L. • > Me Albion, an American poet. But the romance did. not last, and in 1927 the young couple were divorced in Paris after a comparatively brief try at married life. LIVES EXTREMELY SIMPLE LIFE ( JtviiglaiuPs richest man lives a life ot extreme simplicity. Unlike many rich men, who are poor compared to him, lie does not ' own a flock" of town and j country houses devoted to his own per- j sonal use. He once owned Slaitis j Cast'e, in Aberdeenshire. Scotland, sur , rounded liy 7,200 acres of park and hunting lands, but he disposed of this. | His mi I v home is in South An Hoy .yitct-L, Loudon. i

Tin •re is no ma n who , has playeri so large a part in the constructive liusiurss file ol England whose personality is so elusive, even mysterious, lie does not care anything about high society. He is not. among those mentioned as attending, first nights at the opera or theatre.' or lmrse show. ■ He does not own a racing stable, lie does not give great parties. He is not the subject of amusing anecdotes.- He is just Sir • John Reeves Eilerinan, attending to his own business. Even when he does charitable deeds lie tries to (Jo them, as it were', by stealth. During the war lie .supported a great .hospital for wounded ;iini con\a I esceut, officers. , Jt. spoiled his day when the newspapers learned ..about it. lie., is probably one. of. the most steadily busyijn.cn in London.- In addition to- biso.vast .shipping-and., real, estate interests, be is chairman of four: big' investment conceriis, ;nii(L also of Hoare and Co., an old 'conservative • banking firm.

"ITwas""miee'-sardMf him that outside of his business* Ill's liome' and liis family lie bed iio- interests whatever except a good dinner, a good drink, and a good cigar-.—-Milton Brunner, in the “Business Wr. 1 Id.”