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Property tycoon gives away £1m in 'lucky ticket' lottery
A YORKSHIRE property tycoon is giving away £1 million of his personal fortune to 10 lucky readers of his first book.
Ben Benson, who has spent the last six years amassing a 60m property portfolio, wants his book, The New Rules of Wealth to make other people rich.
The 34-year-old, who owns 112 properties, will give 10 random readers 100,000 each in the first giveaway of its kind.
Mr Benson, who splits his time between luxury homes in London and Huddersfield, said: "Ten people are going to get that money, irrespective of how many copies of the book we sell.
"My motivation with the book is not to make money. If it was, I'd be using that 1m to start another company or buy a load of properties.
"The thing I really get excited about is helping people achieve what they want to achieve.
"We will sell a lot of copies of this book, but I don't necessarily count things in terms of pounds and pence anymore. I wanted to do something different.
"This has never been done before.'
Mr Benson's own story is one of rags to riches. The son of divorced parents, he last saw his mother when he was five.
Forced to work to support his father and sister, he was employed on a market stall selling household goods in Milton Keynes from the age of 15.
He said: "My dad was the kind of person that would say 'this time next year it will be different.
"It never ever was. The drive I had not to end up in the same situation as my parents was so strong. I felt I had to break out of it and prove something to myself."
Fascinated by the what makes rich people tick, one day he was dared by his girlfriend to seek a meeting with Sir Philip Green, the billionaire owner of the Arcadia clothing retail group.
And so began a quest to glean the advice of some of the world's richest people for a book about wealth.
Among the 200 entrepreneurs he spoke to were Jacqueline Gold, chief executive of Ann Summers, Simon Woodruff, founder of the Yo! Sushi chain, and property developer Kevin Linfoot.
The New Rules of Wealth, which has taken him seven months to write, explodes what he believes are the myths surrounding wealth and provides rules for successful money-making.
Each copy of the book, which has not yet been printed, has a unique number. Mr Benson will announce one number online every two months and the lucky owner of the corresponding book will get 100,000.
About 14,000 copies have so far been ordered at www.millionpoundbook.com.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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