The Our Family Office Podcast

Adam: 00:08

Welcome back to the Our Family Office podcast. Over the course of this season, we're exploring the areas of focus for a purpose built family office and the ways in which a family office can improve the lives and relationships of Canada's wealthiest families. On today's special episode, our cofounder and CEO, Tim Cestnick, speaks to Sam Mercante, a successful Canadian entrepreneur and a client of our family office. In this interview, Tim and Sam speak about Sam's success story, publishing his memoir, and how working with our family office has helped him and his family. We're so grateful to Sam for sharing his time, and we hope you enjoy the discussion.

Tim: 00:45

Sam, thanks for taking the time to be with us today.

Sam Mercanti: 00:48

My pleasure, Tim. My pleasure.

Tim: 00:50

I know your story. Your story is an inspiring one. It starts really, I think, overseas. And I was wondering if you could share with us a little bit about your family story and lead us into eventually how you got into business.

Sam Mercanti: 01:05

Sure. We were sharecroppers in Italy, and I think you know what that means. We didn't own the farm and, mother and my dad- and this was right after the 2nd World War. And, so my mother, who is the the matriarch of our family, she wrote to my, uncle who was here in Hamilton and, to ask him, how was life in Canada? And he wrote back and said, well, if you are willing to work hard, come over and the streets are paved with gold.

Sam Mercanti: 01:46

If you're not a hard worker, don't come. So, anyway, after filling out the forms and everything else, he sponsored us. We came over. We, it was a 2 week trip from Halifax. Sorry, from Napoli, Italy on a book called the Bocagia to Halifax, Canada.

Sam Mercanti: 02:07

And from Halifax, a 2 day train ride to Leona Station here in Hamilton. And our uncles picked us up, and that was in, we got here in April of 1956.

Tim: 02:18

And that's you, your parents, and-

Sam Mercanti: 02:21

And my 2 siblings. It was myself. I was 9 years old.

Sam Mercanti: 02:26

My brother Peter, who was 8, and my brother Morris, who was, 6 years old.

Tim: 02:31

So how was that transition? I mean, coming to a new country must have been entirely different.

Sam Mercanti: 02:35

It was, it was, yeah, very different. You know? Not so much for us, but for my parents. Didn't understand the language, the customs, and it was really tough. As a matter of fact, my father was here for a year.

Sam Mercanti: 02:47

He had a nervous breakdown. He had to go back. And my mother is the one that carried, you know, the the us start working and to feed us, and yeah. So they, you know, worked very hard, and life was was was not easy. But through the grace of God, we made it through.

Tim: 03:06

Right. And I guess, take us through what your parents did when they got here. They obviously got found work doing something.

Sam Mercanti: 03:14

Of course. My father actually started working at construction, and he hated it because he couldn't understand the words. My mother, stayed home to look after us. And also, my uncles lived with us and they boarded with us, so she'd have to cook for them and make their lunches, and then they, you know, they would pay her. Later on, she started going to the farms to make some extra money to help my father.

Tim: 03:42

So very hardworking family.

Sam Mercanti: 03:44

Incredibly hard.

Tim: 03:46

Now I've always thought that when entrepreneurs create businesses, that somehow they may they may learn that from somewhere. They learn how to build a business or they just they get an entrepreneurial spirit from somewhere. I don't know. Where did in your life tell us about how you let what led you up to actually starting a business, and was that an influence from somebody else in your life?

Sam Mercanti: 04:04

Yeah. Here's what happened, Tim. When we were about 12 years old, we wanted to make some money, myself and my 3 brothers. And we had some friends that actually, sold paper, The Spectator, Hamilton Spectator. So you'd have to go to where they manufactured the paper.

Sam Mercanti: 04:24

And, we used to go there right after school, run, buy some papers and go to corners and sell them for 5¢. We'd buy them for 3 and a half cents, sell them for 5¢. And, then after the papers on Saturday, afternoon there was a farmers market there, so whatever profit we made from the papers, we used to buy cut flowers for 25¢ a bunch, sell them for a dollar a bunch. And so we did that for 3, 4 years, but on one particular Saturday we ended up making about, $60 profit. My dad had to work all week, a dollar an hour, 50 hours to make $50.

Tim: 05:09

Wow.

Sam Mercanti: 05:09

We made, we made that in, one Saturday. So we told that to my parents and they go, that's impossible. You guys are stealing the money. We said, no, it's called business. You buy for a dollar, you sell for 2, you work hard.

Sam Mercanti: 05:24

And that's where I believe we got our entrepreneur spirit because not only did I get into business, but my brothers, they started, later on in life, started Carmen's Banquet and Convention Center.

Tim: 05:37

Which is still going strong today?

Sam Mercanti: 05:39

Very strong. It's under the care of, my nephew, PJ and Joey and Daniella. And, right now they've got like 6 locations, but they're also involved in a company called HUPEG, and OVG who's redoing the Colosseum here in Hamilton.

Tim: 06:00

Yeah. Amazing. So the next generation has definitely picked up that entrepreneurial spirit. But how did- because the business that you eventually got into as was not selling papers. What was it?

Sam Mercanti: 06:13

What happened there is that, you know, I was going to school. I was 17 years old, and, you know, I didn't enjoy school no more. At 17, I start, looking at, you know, cars and women. So and I wasn't focused on school.

Sam Mercanti: 06:29

And, so I went to my mother. I goes, ma, I wanna quit school. She goes, no. She was not happy about that, but eventually, you know, I talked to her into it. She says, go ahead.

Sam Mercanti: 06:38

I start working for my uncles who were in the collision business. All my family who came to Canada, we had uncles who had started in the collision business here, Frank and Ralph Mercanti. So that's where we start working. And so my uncles, Dino and Greeno opened up a business in the north end. I went there, asked them for a job, and I started by, sweeping the floors like, we say in my book, sweeping the floors and detailing vehicles.

Sam Mercanti: 07:10

That's how you start. But I had a knack for writing estimates to help my uncle, and I really, really liked the business. And then they had to close that location. They were they got expropriated, and they opened up another location on Gage and Beach Road in the east end. And, so my and another uncle joined the business, so, my uncle Dino, myself stayed back to manage the existing shop.

Sam Mercanti: 07:40

The other 2 uncles went to manage the other shop, but they weren't business people. They were, you know, a body man and a painter and they were going bankrupt. So my uncle Dino says I gotta hire a manager to help them. So I goes, uncle, what about me? I was, at that time, I was about 18.

Sam Mercanti: 07:56

He goes, you're too young. Anyway, time went on. He couldn't find a manager, and he says, you know, I gotta need somebody. I goes, look at me. Give me a chance. And he did. Eventually, he gave me a chance. I went there. I started managing. And you know what?

Sam Mercanti: 08:14

You know, I just loved the business, loved when I landed jobs. So I took that place from $200,000 a year in business to $1,000,000. started doing insurance work and I used to knock on doors of insurance brokers and agents. And we got in the insurance business and, you know, just started happening.

Sam Mercanti: 08:41

I always look at god and say you know what? Obviously he wanted me to be something else. And then at one time, we built a brand new shop there with the help of a great bank manager, Jim Kallis from BMO. He got us a $200,000 small business development loan. We put up a new shop, new equipment, trained our employees, and we made all the trade papers in Canada.

Sam Mercanti: 09:11

And, I never looked back.

Tim: 09:14

So you eventually ended up with multiple locations. Where did that come about?

Sam Mercanti: 09:19

Well, we, what happened there, it all started from the Gage the Ontario Auto Collision, it was called, on Gage Avenue. And then eventually, I also became a partner, 25% partner, with my uncles. And, then you know what? And I had this place running like a Swiss watch. You know, we computerized it, we had a process and, but I wanted to lift up the collision industry.

Sam Mercanti: 09:49

Collision industry is at the bottom end of the totem pole. Nobody wants to get into an accident. Nobody wants to go to a collision store, especially women. OK? So I wanted to lift it up and and and I managed that with the shop.

Sam Mercanti: 10:03

So after I did this shop, I go, now what? Because I put proper management in place. I did my first acquisition in Burlington. We acquired, the building, property. Then I did another acquisition and another acquisition, and then, we had about 4 corporate stores.

Sam Mercanti: 10:23

And then what happened is that there's a guy that was working for us, Dominic Lucarelli. He wanted to get into his own business. And I goes, Dominic, why don't you be my first franchisee? We'll sell you the area of Stoney Creek. And he goes, what is that all about?

Sam Mercanti: 10:41

I'm going, people that start their own business, most of them fail. I can help you become successful. Anyway, after a while, I talked Tim and his wife into, into becoming my first franchisee, and I did that in, in 92. And that we sold the the the rights to Stoney Creek. After I did him, I did another one and another one and another one.

Sam Mercanti: 11:05

So at one point, we had 4 corporate stores and 4 franchise locations. Then I heard about this company called Carstar Automotive from Overland Park, Kansas City who were doing conversion franchising. They were approaching people already in business and saying to them, do you want to become part of something bigger? We're gonna establish a brand name. Anyway, through my paint company BASF, I wanted to meet the president, Lir Holt.

Sam Mercanti: 11:40

And so I arranged a meeting with him. We did it in Buffalo, and it was amazing what these guys accomplished. I mean, I had 4 corporate stores, 4 franchise locations, and, it took me about 4 years to do that. He had 200 locations in a matter of 3, 4 years. So, after the meeting, we made arrangements.

Sam Mercanti: 12:03

I flew to Kansas City, Overland Park, Kansas City, met with them, and what these guys had done is what I wanna do. Right. And I said, I'd like to buy the rights for Canada for Car Star Automotive. And, after 7, 8 meetings back and forth, that's why that song Kansas City is very special to me when I hear it. And, we did acquire the rights in November of 1994 to open up Carstar Canada.

Sam Mercanti: 12:34

Myself, another great person, Larry Jeffries, got together. I put a team together, and I wrote, you know, a vision, mission, values. I wanted to have 200 locations, car sales locations in Canada, and we also, established some guidelines. We wanted a needed brand awareness of 50%. We wanted to work with insurance company to create a good customer satisfaction index, but we start collecting data for insurance companies, data that measured measured the average repair, how long it would take the car to to get fixed in and out, customer service index, and we send that data to insurance companies.

Sam Mercanti: 13:18

It worked. Right. They loved it. They says, what the heck is this little shop in, in, in Hamilton doing collecting data? And-

Tim: 13:28

You were ahead of your time.

Sam Mercanti: 13:30

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And then, you know, sure enough with the data collection, we made insurance agreements, and they start seeing us work. And yeah.

Sam Mercanti: 13:40

You know what? And that worked. And all of that could is explained in my book. Mhmm. That I'm-

Tim: 13:47

Which we'll talk about in a minute.

Sam Mercanti: 13:48

Sure. Sure.

Tim: 13:49

Now share with me a little bit about the importance of your faith in because I know this is important to you. And I think, you know, as an adviser to your family, we think it's important to understand what's important to you. Share with me a bit about your your faith.

Sam Mercanti: 14:04

Sure. I mean, people ask me why I wrote this book. And, you know, I sold Carstar Automotive in 2015, and, you know, I said, you know, I wanna write my book, to let people know because I believe God gave me some gifts And I did something with it. So I wanted to write the book to let people know that I didn't take God gifts and just blow them away.

Sam Mercanti: 14:36

And, I wanna write the story for my children and my grandchildren. And then, also in the book, my faith is extremely important to me because I believe that, hey, I'm a poor boy from the hills of Abruzzi and to come to, Hamilton, Canada and become something. And so God has blessed me. And, yeah. So for me also this book, the other the second reason why I wrote it is because I want people to know that there is a God and that God answers prayer, and without him nothing would happen with me.

Tim: 15:19

Also in that book, the reason why it's called Risen from the Shop Floor because there in our business, it's a global business and there's people and it's a dirty business, but, you know, but and there's people who have dreams. I want people to buy my book, read it, and let them see that they too can rise from humble beginnings if they work hard and dream big. That's amazing. And I have read your book. It's it is very inspiring. Since we're talking about your book, just to just to share with everybody, it is called Risen from the Shop Floor, lessons from an entrepreneur. And I know from reading it that anyone who chooses to read it is going to be not only inspired, because your story is quite amazing, but they'll understand the role of your faith in your journey as well. If people wanna get copies of the book, by the way, you can go to Sam's website, which is sammercanti.com. So sammercanti.com, and you can get copies, of it there. And by the way, all proceeds go to cystic fibrosis, I understand.

Sam Mercanti: 16:28

Cystic fibrosis. Yeah. It's a charity that it's very close to my heart, and we start supporting cystic fibrosis. He was my 4th franchisee, and, Harry Belma, who had a daughter, sorry, a grandchild with a CF gene, and he didn't know what CF was all about. Got a hold of me and, and, he says, Sam, I'd like to raise some money for CF.

Sam Mercanti: 16:53

I goes, of course, Harry. Let's do it. And that became the charity of, Carstar's charity of choice. So to date and now, not only in Canada, but also in the US, because Michael Macaluso, who was, my president when I had Car Star, now runs Car Star Canada and the US along with Sabrina Thring.

Sam Mercanti: 17:19

And they also started raising money for CF. Yeah. And, very close to my heart. And right now Carstar has raised over $5,000,000 for cystic fibrosis.

Tim: 17:31

That's incredible. Incredible. The book is a good one. And, by the way, Sam, what I enjoy about the book also are the pictures. There's nothing like seeing Sam from the 1970s.

Sam Mercanti: 17:42

With black hair, Tim.

Tim: 17:44

You did have black hair in those days. That's right. I wanna just turn our attention a little bit now for just for a moment a bit about our, you know, our relationship with you because we met, I guess, a few years ago. And at the time we met, you've always had really good advisers around you.

Tim: 17:59

You've got your accountant. You've got more than one lawyer that's done work for you over over the years. And we met, you know, I suppose that you probably wondered what is it this team can bring to the table because I already have my advisers around me. Maybe you can share with us a little bit about, when we sat down and first talked about what it is that we do, and it is broader than just investment management, which I think was a key issue for you when you first came to us. We share with you what else we do, and I think that resonated with you.

Tim: 18:28

And ultimately, you did make a decision to to work with us. And maybe go back in time and just maybe share a little bit about what led you to decide, yes, I'm gonna hire this family office firm.

Sam Mercanti: 18:39

Sure. Well, when I sold Carstar, you know, I got some money, some cash, so we gotta do something with it. And looking after cash is harder than looking after Carstar.

Tim: 18:53

Yeah.

Sam Mercanti: 18:53

And, so, yeah, I had, you know, great great advice. My accountant is my cumbare in Italian, my friend, Fred Buzzelli. And, I got great lawyers in Hamilton, Ross McBride, Peter Theiss, now it's Hassan Chaudhary, and a great tax lawyer, Tom Rocchi. So I was, my my accountant told me, Fred Buzzelli, he says, there's a guy that I know in Toronto, so we went with another firm. Then we hired a gentleman called Michael Sproule, and he's actually the guy that brought you guys to me.

Sam Mercanti: 19:31

Mhmm. And so he did some research on who's the best in Toronto, and Michael said, he actually brought 2 to our table. And I finally, you know, met you and met Neil. And, I believe that, you know, once we met each other, we gave my wife and I and my, family gave you guys some information. And you came back with I think, was close to a 100 things that I should do to if I want to, you know, not only protect my money, get a good return, but for the future of my family.

Sam Mercanti: 20:09

You know, tax planning.

Tim: 20:11

Your estate planning.

Sam Mercanti: 20:13

Estate planning. Very complicated matters that even though I had these advisors, they never brought this up to me. But the beauty about your firm was that, you know, you also had, not only Neil Nisker, who is close to my age, I think he's younger than me, but here's a guy that, him and his family has been investing all his life. He's been through a couple recessions. He knows and and I trust him because he's that kind of guy that knows the business.

Sam Mercanti: 20:44

He's been through it. And then, you know, with your background on tax planning, and I always say, you know, I know now I know Henry is supposed to be the better than you and better than Tom Rocchi.

Tim: 20:55

Henry Shue from our office is our managing director who's second to none in the tax world.

Sam Mercanti: 21:00

Unbelievable. But, you know, that's that's that's two main reasons why I was attracted to your firm.

Tim: 21:07

Well, that's actually let's talk about that just for a second. How important is it for advisers to understand your values, your vision in terms of you know, just in order to come up with the right ideas for you? Is it is that an important thing?

Sam Mercanti: 21:23

Very, very, very important. To me, when I do business, I always look for the other person's values. Do we share each other's values? And if we do, you know, there's a there's a good chance we're gonna get along. But if the values are not crossed are crossed, you Now that happened to me with franchisees. You know, when when somebody wanted to become part of Car Star, when we're first starting, the idea was to get a franchisee. And so a couple times, you know, I know their values were not aligned with mine, but I sort of closed my eyes because I wanted to get money. Right? And, sure as God made little green apples, the relationship didn't last long. The values were crossed, and eventually, we had to get rid of them.

Tim: 22:16

And, you know, I think that's so important. I mean, at our firm, we do serve clients of many different backgrounds, many faith backgrounds, many cultural backgrounds. And in every single case, we think it's really important to understand what's important to the family, where do they see themselves in the future, and build the planning around that. And work collegially with their existing advisers, which we've done with yours

Sam Mercanti: 22:38

Right.

Tim: 22:39

To make sure that the family is served the best and that all the gaps are closed. That's really what we try to do.

Tim: 22:45

What would you tell other families who may be considering whether or not to work with a family office?

Sam Mercanti: 22:53

Well, the advice I would give, to anybody, look very close at Our Family Office, not only because of, Neil Nisker and Tim Cestnick, but they're a team. They have an incredible team who I believe shares the same values that you and Neil. And , you know, and you make us feel very comfortable. Like, I know that your team works very close to my daughter, Samantha, who, by the way, Samantha is my successor.

Sam Mercanti: 23:30

She's 43 years old, and she's gonna be taking over from me, but your team has worked very well for with her.

Tim: 23:40

We actually really enjoy sitting down with her and just we'll go through different topics that she identifies that she wants education about, and we'll just do sessions with her.

Sam Mercanti: 23:48

Yeah.

Tim: 23:49

You know, we we enjoy that, and that's an important part of helping her.

Sam Mercanti: 23:52

You know what? She's, Samantha's also also written a book. She had an issue with, a mental illness with schizophrenia, but, you know, through the grace of God, she's dealing with it. You never get rid of a mental illness, but she knows how to deal with it.

Sam Mercanti: 24:07

And she's doing marathons right now and just graduating graduating with a 3 year MBA from McMaster University.

Tim: 24:15

It's been fun to watch that and actually to help her along the way with some of the, you know, investment principles and things that maybe she's learning even through her MBA. It's been fun to see, you know, go along with her on that on that journey.

Sam Mercanti: 24:28

But you guys I know the beauty about you guys is that Samantha and I could email you or, Neil or your team, And within 5 minutes, we get a response. That is very impressive from a big firm in Toronto. OK? So we love that.

Tim: 24:46

Well, we want you to feel like you're the only client we have. That's what we want you to feel like.

Sam Mercanti: 24:50

Oh, you're doing a good, you're doing a good job at it.

Tim: 24:52

Well, we we appreciate it. Sam, I just wanna say thank you for sharing your story. It's very inspiring for helping us to understand the role of your faith in your success. I think that's been important to you.

Tim: 25:07

And just for being a a good friend, and trusting us to work with your family. We really appreciate, you know, your family very much, and thank you. And, again, thanks for taking the time today.

Sam Mercanti: 25:19

My pleasure, Tim. And, give my best to Neil and the rest of your team. And you know what? Just as, Samantha says, and I say, protect our money and give us a good return. And I know you're doing that.

Tim: 25:34

Yeah. We'll do that. Thanks very much, Sam. Thank you. Thank you.

Adam: 25:39

I hope you've enjoyed the final episode of the first season of the Our Family Office podcast. We've tried to give you, the listener, a glimpse into the work that we do and how we work to make our clients' lives better. It's been a lot of fun to put this season together. Thanks to all our guests and to Henry Shew for his producing work. Please visit ourfamilyoffice.ca for more information about our firm, and don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe so that we get to make another season.

Adam: 26:04

See you soon. The information in this podcast is presented as a general educational and informational resource only. While certain participants in this podcast may be registered to provide investment advice as a representative of our Family Office Inc, itself a registered firm in certain Canadian jurisdictions, this podcast does not provide individualized investment, financial planning, legal, tax, or insurance advice, nor is it meant as a recommendation to any listener to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise take any other investment action. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented in this podcast is your own responsibility. Our Family Office Inc and each of its representatives that participate in any podcast disclaim that any listener should rely in any way on any of this content as investment, tax, legal, or insurance advice.

Adam: 26:52

Listeners are encouraged to consult with their individual investment adviser and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions.