Jonathan Hallinan dead: BPM Corp property mogul dies from cancer after apprentice tradie job

A multi-millionaire who tragically lost his battle with cancer started saving money by pounding the pavement selling lemonade and handing out newspapers long before he built his property empire.

Jonathan Hallinan, 47, the founder and managing director of Melbourne-based construction group BPM Corp passed away on Thursday after a two-year battle with cancer. 

He was given a bone marrow transplant in 2021 but it was not enough to save him.

Mr Hallinan, who lived in Melbourne and had an estimated net worth of $735million in 2021, always dreamt big, with BPM overseeing dozens of projects worth more than $1billion.

As a child, he set up his own lemonade stand and by the age of 10 was delivering the paper around his neighbourhood.

During his teenage years, he completed an apprenticeship in carpentry and bought his first home at just 19.

‘From 12, I was saving for my first property, working on building sites and selling newspapers,’ he said in an interview with GQ in 2015.

He then started flipping homes and was so determined to succeed that he missed out on things his peers were diving into.

‘Once we got to 18 to 20, my mates couldn’t appreciate it, and didn’t respect it. So I guess I lost that stage of my life – I didn’t go out and party, every dollar earned went into the business and property,’ he said.

Mr Hallinan launched BPM in 1995, with the company now owning more than 30 buildings, including both commercial and residential.

His most famed work is Melbourne’s $300million Shadow Play tower, where apartments sell for between $425,000 and $2,348,000, and what Mr Hallinan described as a dream come true.

‘The captivating and majestic project, Shadow Play, sees the fruition of my greatest dream of impacting Melbourne’s skyline,’ he wrote on Instagram in 2016, along with a picture of the project.

BPM also owns the former Grandmaster Recorders studio, that has been transformed into a restaurant and bar in Los Angeles.

Some of the household names who have walked through the doors at the studio include the Red Hot Chili Peppers, David Bowie, Stevie Wonder and Kanye West.

During Mr Hallinan’s teenage years, he completed an apprenticeship in carpentry and bought his first home at just 19

His most famed work is Melbourne’s Shadow Play tower where apartments sell for between $425,000 and $2,348,000

One close friend of Mr Hallinan, Ashley Bramich, who worked in sales at BPM, said there was a side to the businessman that the public didn’t see.

‘Everyone saw the stylish suits and the brash statements, but a lot of that was about promoting the business,’ Mr Bramich told the Australian Financial Review.

‘Those who got to know him saw the soft side, the absolute gentleman who was actually quite shy.’

Mr Hallinan is survived by his wife Mikka Hallinan and their three children. 

In a heartfelt post to Instagram after his death, Ms Hallinan said her husband had died peacefully at the Royal Melbourne Hospital after ‘spending two days sharing ”beautiful goodbyes” with his close family’.

‘Jonnie passed in the storm [Thursday] morning,’ she wrote.

‘In his own words, Jonnie said he was going home.’

Mikka Hallinan shared the touching last words her husband Jonathan spoke before he tragically lost his battle with cancer on Thursday 

Ms Hallinan said her husband had found ‘a deep comfort in faith’ while sick in hospital.

‘Now he is home to his ”eternal bliss” as he called it,’ she said. 

Ms Hallinan said a doctor had broken the bad news to her husband last week that a drug trial he was hoping to take part in wouldn’t be possible.

The doctor said his body was too busy fighting off an infection and he had ‘overall unwellness from the level of his disease in his body’.

She said her and Mr Hallinan’s family had been by his side during his final days, before he ‘left us for the sky, in true Jonnie style, arriving with a bang’. 

‘It was an absolute privilege to have been his wife and to have been able to love him and blend his family with my own,’ she said.

Ms Hallinan admitted she was experiencing emotional pain but had found comfort in knowing she had helped her husband find ‘true freedom’.

Mr Hallinan was the founder and managing director of construction group BPM Corp which owns Grandmaster Recorders

The couple eloped in November, with Ms Hallinan sharing they wanted to spend ‘the latest part of Jonnie’s recovery from cancer as husband and wife’.

They got married just a day before he started his last round of cancer treatment, and celebrated at their South Yarra penthouse.

In his last post to Instagram in December, Mr Hallinan shared that a setback in his health had been ‘taking absolutely all the strength I’ve got left’. 

‘It is important for me to preserve all remaining energy for myself and my family,’ he wrote.

‘I appreciate your understanding when I haven’t gotten back to you, or am not responding to your calls or cannot see you. It’s not personal, I am just at my limit’.