HEIR DOUBLES FORTUNE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19805, 6 December 1938, Page 5

HEIR DOUBLES FORTUNE

SIR JOHN ELLERMAN TAX BILD £500,000 LONDON, Oct. 17. . When Sir John Ellerman, £37,000,000 shipping magnate, died five years ago, death duties left his son with the family fortune reduced to £IB.OOO- - After five years, the new Sir John Ellerman, now 28, is estimated to be worth more than his father ever was. Yesterday the accounts of Ellerman Lines, Limited, were published. The company control 104 ships trading to every country in the world. Their profit last year was £1,177,906. That is 61 per cent more than in 1930; and the, 1936 profit was 23 per cent more than in 1935. So, for the first time since his father died, Sir John has decided to pay himself a dividend on the Deferred Ordinary capital, a modest 10 per cent. The rest of the profits go back into the business. £IOO Becomes £127

This will help to explain how Sir John has regained the millions that went to the State:— One hundred pounds in a business earning 5 per cent, becomes more than £127 if you leave the profits alone- for five years. A million pounds invested becomes approximately £1,276,000. But the earnings on much of Sir John's capital in the past year have been equal to 50 per cent. His companies have an investment income of £4,000,000 and floating assets of £5,545,910.

A shipping expert said last night: "There is always money to be made in shipping somewhere. "If one of his companies loses a bit another makes it up." Sir John—a modest young man, devoted to his blackhaired young wife Esther—was in a position to leave his millions alone.

His father's brewery shares, which stood at £IBO per £IOO in 1933, are now worth about £290 per £IOO. His London General Investment Trust ghares, worth at death duty time £2lO each, have rocketed £6O or £7O each. Of Sir John's yearly income—probably is paid out in income tax and surtax. Of the remaining half-million Sir John spends personally, perhaps, £SOOO a year. The rest goes back into the businesses to multiply again. Controller of Sir John's fortune is Lieut.-Colonel Sir William Cox, erect, Somerset-born nephew-by-marriage to the first Sir John. It is he who directs the millions invested in real estate, ships, newspapers, breweries. Sir John recently gave up living in a six-roomed villa, and bought a house in Kensington Palace-gardens —Millionaires' Row. .