A Millionaire's Story.

Hastings Standard, Issue 228, 23 January 1897, Page 4

A Millionaire's Story.

The Daily Mail has an interesting interview with Mr E. T. Hooley, the cycle, land, and bovril magnate. " I am a countryman," he declares. " I hate town life, and I hate town sharks with their tricks and wiles. I stay in London as little as I can, and get out of it as soon as lam able; and, but for the fact that I have to be on the spot to manage my affairs, you would very seldom see me here. I am, I suppose, the largest sheepfarmer in England, and I know every one of my three hundred horses by sight." " Tell me, Mr Hooley, how did you become a millionaire ? How have you contrived to jump in two years from poverty to great wealth ? " " Poverty ? " Mr Hooley querried. " I cannot say that I .was ever what you would call a poor man. Some people, I know, have an idea that I was one month in a back street end the next in a palace. That is altogether wrong. I come from a family of Nottingham lace manufacturers, and when I was 22 my mother left me £85,000. Since then I have lived at the rate of not less than £3OOO a year, which could harldy be called poverty." "I started business as a sharebroker in Nottingham, and for some time made £20,000 a year. As a stock broker I got into touch with a large connection of very rich people ; I secured their confidence, and they have been the great factors in the success of the big schemes I have since carried through. When I issue a company I do not rely on the outsidu public; my own circle controls between fifteen and twenty millions, and its support ensures a thing going. It is a fact upon which I make no secret, that these friends get a share of my profits."

" When in Nottingham I had to do with the initial steps of starting some companies, and I saw that the promoters made great profits. I asked myself why i should not do this work. Then a friend brought to my notice Humber shares, which at that time were despised at si. I looked into them, was satisfied that they had a future, and bought largely until the shares went up to Then 1 reconstructed the company, making £36-5,000 out of the deal. Other --cycling schemes followed, the biggest being the Dunlop tyre deal. I bought Dunlops outright for three millions, sold them to the present company for five, and now they are worth seven/ '• On what principles do you go in financing ?" "In the first place I have no secrets; if I had I should want a staff of 200 clerks to keep mv books. I never have yet been able to keep a secret, and never will. I say that the promoter is as much entitled to his profit, and bis money is as honestly earned, as that of any other man. When a farmer buys a cow off me, cuts it. up and resells it at a higher rate than he bought, he is entitled to make what he can ; so am I when I buy and sell a company. I buy, say, for two millions and sell it for two and a half, and I tell the public straight out that I am going to make something for myself out of the deal. I make it an absolute rule only to take up one concern at a time, and never to leave it until it is really on its legs. 1 am able to point back to all the things I have been associated with, and say that not one of them but to-day is in a haelthy state."