I'm super happy that I joined NBF over 20 years ago. I was looking
for a change in my career and had lots of colleagues and friends in
the business. I asked around the major bank owned firms and met
Richard Rousseau, who was in charge of National Bank Financial out
West, and just learned a little bit more about the company and the
culture and entrepreneurial experience. Similar outlook to mine. And
so I thought it was a perfect fit and very glad I did. Well, I looked
at the culture and I wanted to have a firm that was its values were
aligned with mine. And to give an example, I have branded myself, as
Albert Brandstatter, insight, diligence and care. And so I use my
industry experience over many years to provide insight to my clients.
I do it with a diligent work ethic because I care for my clients and I
want to take care of them. And the cool thing about National Bank
Financial is they care for me as well and they take care of me. And so
they want to make sure that I do the best job I can for my clients and
my team, that we do the best job for our clients and they provide me
with the resources to do so. I am so pleased to be with this firm. So
the cornerstone of our business is we started an AA basket a little
over 20 years ago. It's a core holding for most all of our clients.
It's it's a solid blue chip model of Canadian and US equities compared
to the benchmark. It's done very well over. We have a very good 20
year track record. We get lots of input from National Bank as to help
us choose the stocks. And, the team members carry out all the trades
and transactions. Again, whenever we look at a client, it's with their
interests in mind. So we always put the client first and decide what
proportion of the baskets they want to hold. But for ease of portfolio
management, a large portion of the people own a lot of the same core
holdings, and then we diversify each one from there. So, our clients
are happy and it's worked well and we're happy. So National Bank
Financial has provided me with the resources to put portfolio
management in place for me so I can now focus on developing my
business, on taking care of my clients, as I said earlier on. And also
it provides me with a little bit of free time to play the occasional
golf game. That's my good ten. Other culture is fantastic. It's the
main reason why I've stuck around for 20 years. The current management
is always receptive to hear what you have to say. They take your
input. They may not always agree 100%, but at least their ears are
always open. I feel quite confident that we can call upon any of
senior management at any time and and get get an audience with them,
put forward some ideas that we think will help our clients and our
teams make things better at National Bank and it's worked very well.
So nothing but high regards for for the culture and the management.
The culture, as I said earlier on, is it's wonderful. As a matter of
fact, this is a true story. Several weeks ago on a Saturday morning, I
was just driving, running some errands and came by our office and
thought, I'm so lucky to work at this place. So I actually called on
Saturday morning, our national sales manager, Simon LeMay, He answered
the phone, which I was really shocked by it because it's a Saturday
morning. It was around 10 a.m. I guess he thought there was something
wrong. And I said, Simon, just calling you to let you know, I'm so
happy I've been at this firm now for 20 years, and I've known Simon
for 20 years as well. And I said, thank you for for doing such a great
job and thank you for just making this place a wonderful company. And
he said, That's the reason you're calling me. I said, Yeah. I said,
Right now I feel so much joy because I drove by my office and I was
thinking of how great a company this is. And I just wanted to thank
you. That's a true story. It just happened recently.