SUDDEN WEALTH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 161, 11 July 1938, Page 9

SUDDEN WEALTH.

YOUNG SHIPOWNER " i* £3OO A YEAR TO £1,000,000. " d CARGO FOR SPANISH FORTS. LONDON, June SO. The most intriguing figure in the city of London to-day is a young British shipowner—Mr. Jack Albert Billmeir. Wherever the bombing of British ships is discussed—in the city, in Whitehall, in Parliament, and even in the far-off ports of Spain—the name of Mr. Billmeir comes into the discussion. For Mr. Billmeir is the man behind quite a substantial proportion of the British cargo fleet that has been carrying food, cpal and medical supplies to Government Spain. Many of the ships which have caused such grave complications are his company’s ships. He has become such a power in the Spanish trade that he is occasionally called jocularly “The King of Spain.” Very little is known about Mr. Billmier. He is aloof and shy. He dislikes publicity for his enterprises. He abhors and avoids interviews. Held Minor Job. A few years ago he held a minor £206 or £3OO a year job in a city office. To-day he is a very wealthy mm Indeed, some people in the city put the fortune he has made with such rapidity at as much as a million pounds. His meteoric rise to fortune began three years ago when he was a director, with his wife, of the Stanhope Steamship Company, Limited, owning twe cargo ships. Since the outbreak of the Spanish war his company has bought up all the ships it could till it controlled a fleet of 23 cargo ships. Recently his company has sold one or two of them at a good figure. The fleet is managed from the splendid offices of Messrs. J. A. Billmeir and Company, in Holland House, Bury Street, E.C.3. Modest House. He is a slender, youngish man. dark, dresses well, and wears horn-rimmed spectacles. All day he sits in his office busily moving his ships here and there on their dangerous journeys. At night he goes home to an unpretentious red-brick Victorian villa named Lamorna in Stanhope Road, Hornsey—a very modest residence for a wealthv man.

His neighbours, in fact, do not realise that he has become so wealthy. His only sign of comfortable affuenoe is a nice sports car and a beautiful Samoyed dog.

Very frequently Mr. Billmeir dashes across to the Continent on business.

A reporter, who called at his office seeking an interview, was met by a dark, swarthy young assistant, as courtly as a 1 Spanish grandee. ■ Still Young. The assistant said: “It is impossible for Mr. Billmeir to talk on the matter. We don’t wish to appear in the Press. It is extremelv bad for business.”

His wife, not yet middle-aged, said recently, when discussing the wealth that has come to them: “Thank goodness we’re still young.” Almost every one of Mr. Billmeir’s company’s ships has a name beginning with “Stan,” after the placid Hornseyaroa in which he lives.

There are, for example, StanweU, Stancroft, Stanland, Stanwold —captured by Franco, but released on the demand of the British. Government —Stanmore, Stanbridge and Stanwood. Mr. Billmeir’s company's ships do not, of course, carry war material to Spain, only food, coal and medical supplies. They collect freights which have been dumped at neutral ports by other ships unwilling to run the risk of the last journey to Spain and take them into the danger zone. In city circles it is said that the Billmeir Company has been offered as high a figure as £IOO.OOO to stop sending their ships to Spanish Government ports, but Mr. Billmeir keeps that secret to himself.