A teenage dream becomes a career

Himmelman then pursued his dream, returning frequently to speak with the head of Merrill Lynch’s operation in Nova Scotia. The teenager was told he’d first need a business diploma. So, once high school was behind him, Himmelman earned his bachelor of commerce degree from Saint Mary’s University. Sheepskin in hand, he returned to Merrill Lynch. This time, he was told he needed sales experience.

So, Himmelman did what few young men would do. He ran upstairs to the office three floors above Merrill Lynch and filled out a job application with New York Life Insurance Co. Six months and several sales awards later, Himmelman ran back down the stairs to the Merrill Lynch office. This time, he got his dream job.

“I was the youngest person they had ever hired,” says Himmelman, now a certified financial planner.

Starting his new career meant spending six months in New York City learning about financial planning, buying and selling stocks, and building a book of business.

“I took classes at the City University of New York,” Himmelman says, “and I took the New York Stock Exchange exam.”

Then, he returned home to continue his career, which turned out to be everything he’d dreamed of – and more. He found the mix of immediacy and uncertainty to be heady. And the pace was energizing.

“I’m dealing in the present and the future,” Himmelman says. “What I’m doing is always looking forward. When you’re dealing with [what’s in] the news every day, the job is always new.”

By the time Himmelman had settled into his Halifax office in 1973, an ill financial wind was blowing. “It was like the 2008 of today,” Himmelman recalls. “Something ominous was pending.”

The 1973-74 stock market crash signalled the arrival of what was then the worst recession since the Second World War. For Himmelman, that recession provided an educational experience that has helped prepare him for the economic conditions of today. Although much has changed since the 1970s, Himmelman says, human nature has not: “People are still people. They want more money and less risk. It doesn’t exist, but they still want it.”

Himmelman’s approach with clients is to discuss the economic situation in a straightforward way: “I lay out the possibilities. ‘Here’s what can go wrong, and here’s what can go right’.”

There is money to be made, he says, but it comes at a price. “You can still get 7%, 8% or 9% returns,” he says, “but it’s with risk. My value is to help the client diversify the portfolio.”

Language is key to client communication, but financial services discourse is often riddled with confusing jargon. Himmelman takes care to communicate financial concepts clearly to his clients.

As an advisor with Citadel, a full-service, employee-owned investment dealer, Himmelman gives advice on financial planning, individual stocks and bonds, and mutual fund purchases. He doesn’t focus on niche markets, demographic groups or income levels. Himmelman’s door is open to anyone who wants his services – and is willing to work with him.

“If people are interested, I’m open to helping,” he says. “I don’t have [asset] minimums or maximums. I’m more interested in their interest level.”

Himmelman is not interested in clients who don’t want to learn about their investments. “I want people to take an active role,” he says. “There’s a real educational element to the job.”

The educational side always has attracted Himmelman. He taught the Canadian securities course for 10 years through Saint Mary’s University and the Nova Scotia Community College. Many of his former students, he notes wryly, are his competitors today.

Himmelman, a Toronto native who grew up in Halifax, once had an opportunity to teach full-time. The Nova Scotia government had asked him to lead a course for recipients of workers’ compensation benefits. The idea was to help individuals who couldn’t return to their previous employment to develop a new career path. In the case of Himmelman’s students, that career would be in financial services. Himmelman liked the idea, and he liked teaching, but he was turned off by his students’ general lack of commitment to becoming financial planners.

“After two classes,” Himmelman says, “I decided I couldn’t do it. The people weren’t interested in the class. But I enjoyed teaching to those who wanted to learn.”

Himmelman also has tried to keep the public informed about best practices and sound investing. He used to host a local television program called Inside the Market, modelled after Wall Street Week, a U.S.-based investment news and information program that aired weekly on PBS.

“We had some interesting characters on,” Himmelman says. “I interviewed Jean Chrétien, then minister of finance, in the late 1970s. When analysts would come to town, we’d have them on the show.”

Himmelman’s efforts to reach out through media and teaching, he says, were driven more by the desire to educate the public than self-interest: “[I] didn’t do things for money.”

Still, the drive to move up was in Himmelman’s DNA, and he left Merrill Lynch after five years. “When you’re 27 and your boss says he’s never leaving,” Himmelman says, “‘never’ is a long time.”

Himmelman then became vice president of a small brokerage firm, Goulding Rose & Turner Ltd., and ran the company’s Eastern Canada office. Several takeovers later, he left to establish his own financial planning business. Then, in 2007, a friend, John Hanrahan, called to invite Himmelman to join the new full-service brokerage firm he was starting up – Citadel.

“I’m back to where I started,” says Himmelman with a laugh.

While the pace and demands of financial planning appeal to Himmelman, so does the routine of life outside the office. A downhill skier, he heads to his ski chalet in Wentworth, N.S., in winter, where he hits the slopes with friends and family. In spring, he starts planning and pruning his garden in Halifax (where he also has three hot tubs). When the hot weather finally hits, Himmelman heads to his summer home in Hubbards, along Nova Scotia’s South Shore. His boat, a 26-foot Baja bowrider powerboat, was already bobbing in the water at the time of writing. IE

 

Today, Canada’s banks dominate the investment advisory business, says Mike Himmelman, a certified financial planner with Citadel Securities Inc. in Halifax. When Himmelman was rising through the ranks of the investment industry, the banks were clients of the investment dealers; now, the banks and the dealers are competitors.

“Banks ended up picking the brokers off,” Himmelman says, referring to the trend of banks acquiring investment dealers, which began in the 1980s. “The next thing you know,” he says, “the big banks run the show.”

In this new environment in the financial services industry, Himmelman says, young advisors starting out in the industry would do well to join a bank-owned investment dealer.

© 2012 Investment Executive. All rights reserved.