FINANCIAL WIZARD

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 563, 21 June 1933, Page 3

FINANCIAL WIZARD

CONFESSES FRAUD LONDON'S GREATEST ; GENIUS OF HIS GENERATION. REDUCED TO BANKRUPTCY. Ernest Terah' Hooley, who was assoeiated with Horatio Bottomley during the eomp'any-promoting boom of the ndneties, and earned the reputation of heing the greatest money-spinner ■of .his igieneration, had a genuine admination for Bottomley's abilities, as he testified in his "Confe&sions," published in 1924 after he had served a sentence of three years for issuing. a fraudulent balance-sheet. "There is just one person in this world to whom I would like to pay itribute," wrote Hooley in the final chapter of his "Confessions," "and if I were a f oreigner I mdght very well call him 'Master.' This is no o-ther than my old friend Horatio Bottomley,, now, alasf l'anguishing behind prison walls (Bot-. tomley was sentenced in 1922 and released in 1927). I shall never forget the last time I saw him. It was in Wormwood Scrubs .Prison, just pnior ■to my removal to Parkhurst. I, the ex-millionaire, was tengaged in pushing a wheelbarrow with a party of men going to work. Passing by the exercise yard whom should I see but another companion in misfortune, like myself a light of other days, no other than by old-time colleague Horatio Bottomley. He was pacing up and down. the yard, looking the picture of dejection, while I, who have always heen able ito take the rough with the smooth, was in my usual cheerful frame. 'Buck up, B.,' I shouted, as I passed by. But Bottomley did not reply. He just grunted and went walking up and down, possibly without «giving a thought to the somewhat tragic. spectacle of the two millionaires renewing their aquaintance as unwiilling guests of his Majesty tha King. Well, he has fallen into the trap, he so often set for other people, and he mustn't complain. I take off my hat to him as the cleverest fellow I have ever known. If he had managed to keep straight, there was nothing in the world he could not have done." His Start in Life. Hooley, who is still alive, is in his seventy-sixth year, a year older th'an Bottomley was at the time of his death, says a writer in the Melbourne Age. Hooley's career as a company promoter and money-spinner is without paral'lel in England. It is estimated that during the f our years he flourished 'as 'a financial wizard the aggregate capital of the companies he floated exceeded £100,000,000. He is the son of a lace manufacturer at Notb.ngham, and was taken into the business by his father, but at the age of thirty he quitted it, and set up for ■hiniself in Nottingham as an agenit, and engaged in buying and selling houses. and land. He was so successful that he soon decided that Nottingham was too small for him, and he went to London. His financial resources at that time, according to his "Confessions," amounted to £100,000. His big deal ih London was the purchase of the Dunlop Tyre Company in 1896 for £3,000,000. Of course, he paid only a dep.osit on this deal, and -even to raise the amountj of the deposiit he .had to get assista.nce from his friends; but his syndicate succeeded un clearing a profit of £2,000,000 by floating the business into a company, with a capital of £5,000,000. Those were the days of the cycling boom, and the applications for ithe shares in- the Dunlop Company that Hooley fioated exoeedied £9,000,000. The successful operation estahlished his fame in London, anrl thousands of investors, anxious to make mohey, pinned th'eir faith to him as a financial wizard, and applied for shares in each isuccessive company he floated. He made a profit of ma.ny thousands. Fy floating the Bovril Company; he purchased for £75,000 a gold-mining concession in Siberia, land sold it for £1,000,000 ito the company which he floated to take dt over. Another company, the Newfoumdland Pulp and Timber Territories, floated by Hooley, paid 1,000,000 for a concession which ■originally cost him only £3000. He bought the Trafford Park Estate at Manchester, and made a net profit of over £500,000. At this time he was a young man in the thirties. In three years he made over £7,000,000 for himself, according to his own statement; and in the fourth' year he filed

■his petition in bankruptcy, with unsecured liabilities amounting to £1,549,071. Besieged with Business.. He was the first man to exploit in •coinpany-promoting the Bribish pub--lic's reverenee for titles. He paid large sums to secure peers as directors of his companies, and such was •the splendonr that surrounded his name that th'ere was eager competition among peers, for such positions. His quarters at the Midland Grand Hotel in London, where he occupied as offlces and living ,'apartments a whole floor at a rental of £10,000 a year, . were eagerly besieged day after day by people anxious to put business .propositions before him, by people ■anxious for tips regarding h'is new . flotations, by people who were trying to blackmail him. Ha spent money reeklessly and lavishly, and was a welcome guest .at the clubs and homes of th'e laristocrats. Blackmailers started finanoial papers in which to attack his flotations until they were bought off. In his "Confessions" he admitted' that he had "indulged in wholesala bribery and corruption" to gain his ends. "W'hen I came to London," h'e wrote, "all the blackmailers and blood. suckers in the city rubbed their hands and said gleefully, 'Ah, now we shall begin to make a bit of money.' There is no need for me now to mince words, and I don't in the least mind confessing that I had achieved a fairly formidable reputation in the Midlands

as a man who stuck at nothing to gain his ends. Some of the deals in which I induced the dLre.ct.ors qf various • cycle companies to sell me their businesses wereawarm to the point of sultriness. But I always paid people for what they did. Nobody who stood iri with me could ever acc'u&a me of heing stingy." Hooley's bankruptcy was the end of his career as a financial wizard. In 1912, fourteen years after the collapse of the financial boom he h'ad done so rnuch to create, he was convicted of fraud and sentenced to 12 months' amprisonment. From the standpoint of men who had handled millions of pounds the case was a very trumpery one, concerning a su'm of £2000 which h'e ha.d obtained by fraud from a young man n'amed iGeorge Tweedale in connection with the purchase of land. In 1922 he was associated with the post-war hoom in Lancashire cotton mill shares, and as the result of a criminal prosecution against him and several co-dCrectors in connection with the issue of a fraudulent balance-sheet of a/ cotton company he was sentenced to three years' •imprisonment.

It was on the Aucklancl-Whangarei teain. A man looking like a "comniercial" was puffing a very foul briar. Pacing him another passenger was crnoking a cigarette and reading a newspaper. Happening to look up he noticed that blaekened briar, and said: "Pardon me. "I am a doctor and must tell you that pipe of yours is unfit to smoke. It's saturated with. nicotine. If you're wise you'll scrap it." "It's a bit strong," admitted its owner, with a grin, "but I reckon that's the fault of my tobaeeo." "Quite likely," smiled the doctor. "But i why smoke such stuff? Why not do as I do and smoke our New Zealand tobacco? You see it's toasted and all but free from nicotine, therefore quite harmless. And its good!" The pipe-smoker thanked the doctor, and said he'd act on his advice. He'll be wise if he does. Our New Zealand brands: Riverhead Gold, Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog) Cavendish and Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead) — are famous for purity, flavour and aroma. But look out for imitations! There are several about!