Daniel K. Ludwig, Publicity-Shy Billionaire Shipping-Fleet Tycoon

NEW YORK - Daniel K. Ludwig, a publicity-shy shipping tycoon who remained a billionaire despite losing a billion-dollar investment in an Amazon plantation, has died at the age of 95.

Mr. Ludwig's heart failed Thursday at his home in Manhattan, said R. Palmer Baker Jr., executor of his estate. He said Mr. Ludwig had been ill for some time and had not been active in years.

Mr. Ludwig parlayed a $5,000 loan from his father into a global business empire, National Bulk Carriers Inc., based on a fleet of supertankers. He also owned citrus farms in Panama, coal mines in Australia, hotels in the Caribbean and a salt plant in Mexico's Baja California.

He once was the world's richest man, with estimates of his fortune ranging up to $3 billion before his loss in Brazil. Forbes magazine estimated his fortune last year at $1.2 billion. But he showed little interest in yachts or other ornaments of wealth.

Baker said Mr. Ludwig's will "is structured primarily to benefit cancer research."

In later years, Mr. Ludwig devoted much of his attention to the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, which he founded in 1971. The institute has a staff of more than 500 working in 10 offices in seven nations.

Mr. Ludwig quit school after the eighth grade. He entered the shipping business by borrowing $5,000 from his father to convert an old steamer into a barge that plied the Great Lakes.

In 1936, Mr. Ludwig hit upon the financing scheme that would

start his fortune. He got oil companies to charter tankers for future oil deliveries, then used the charters as collateral to borrow money to build the tankers. The fees from the charter covered the loan and interest, and still left Mr. Ludwig a profit and a working tanker.

During World War II, Mr. Ludwig built oil tankers for the government. Most of the vessels reverted to him after the war, and gave him the most modern fleet afloat.

During the 1950s, he leased a shipyard in Japan and began developing ever-larger tankers. His 100,000-ton supertanker was built about the time the Suez Canal crisis created a demand for huge ships to move Mideastern oil around the Cape of Good Hope.

During the bull stock market of the 1960s, he bought 4.1 million shares of Union Oil Co. of California and sold them at a $46 million profit. A $12 million investment in container ships turned into $60 million.

But Mr. Ludwig lost money in Brazil, where a plantation bigger than the state of Connecticut swallowed an estimated $1.1 billion.

Mr. Ludwig was more successful in his efforts to avoid publicity. He stopped talking to reporters in 1963 and for 20 years did not allow himself to be photographed.

Mr. Ludwig and his second wife, Gertrude, had no children. Mr. Ludwig had a daughter with his first wife, whom he divorced in 1937, but "she is not recognized as such by him," according to Baker.

Funeral arrangements were private, Baker said.