SUCCESS RECIPE

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 48, Issue 2885, 27 March 1939, Page 7

SUCCESS RECIPE

A MILLIONAIRE’S SECRET * START EARLY AND WORK LATE PILL BUSINESS ACQUIRED Behind a massive desk in an oakpanelled London office the size of a ballroom, and decorated like a ballroom with oil paintings and a mass of potted chrysanthemums, sits a silver-haired, fresh-complexioned man of 63, smoking a long cigar. His name is Hill. Nearly every time you swallow a patent pill or make a 6d. purchase in a famous chain store you are putting money into Mr. Hill’s pocket. And there is quite a lot there already.

Because Mr. Philip E. Hill, of King Street, St. James’s, London, is the most discussed financial genius of today. His deals in millions of pounds have astonished the city, writes the ‘'Sunday Chronicle.” He surprised the Stock Exchange with an offer of 2,800,000 shares in Ranks, Limited, the big flour-milling concern.

It was only a few days after he had negotiated the sale of £ 6,500,000 worth of Woolworth shares, for which applications exceeding £33,000,000 were received. When a “Sunday Chronicle” reporter called on Mr. Hill he asked him the question it is usual to ask millionaires . . . his recipe for success.

“Start early and Work late,” was Mr. Hill’s reply. I Mr. Hill invariably reaches his office at 8.30 in the morning and seldom leaves till after six. But he believes in long holidays for himself and his staff, who J think the world of him. Like most successful men, he sW ed from modest beginnings. “No,” he laughed, “my first salary wasn’t five shillings a week—it was £ 1.”

Son of a cattle auctioneer, ne was

boni in Torquay. At 14 he decided to fend for himself, and by the age of 18 he was 'working for a firm of estate agents in Cardiff. Within a comparatively short time he brought in so much business for his employers that, as a reward for his services, he asked for a partnership. But Mr. Hill had a rebuff. So far I from agreeing to a partnership, they gave him a week’s notice. “And it’s the best thing that could have happened to me,” says Mr. Hill. “Some people think that the “sack” is the worst calamity that could befall them. Believe me, it can often be their salvation. With the little money he had saved he soon started up on his own account, and three years afterwards was on top of the estate agency business in Cardiff. By the age of 25 he had £ 25,000 in the bank. Then Mr. Hill went to London.

The city sat up and took notice of Mr. Hill in 19 24 when he negotiated a limited company now known as Beecham Estates and Pills, Ltd., which acquired the old-established business of Beecham’s Pills and Covent Garden Markets and Estates. The purchase price was £2,800,000. One spectacular deal followed another.

Often the negotiations in these deals are tiresome and protracted. Mr. Hill’s strong card is his infinite patience.