The Working Rich: Blue-Collar Millionaires
For blue-collar millionaires, investing doesn’t mean sitting back and watching stock charts; it’s hard work, and it pays off.
It’s a classic of tabloid journalism: the nondescript neighbour who leads a frugal and reclusive life only to leave an estate worth millions. But all around us are hard-working entrepreneurs whose unassuming ways veil a wealth far beyond what the average worker could ever aspire to.
Most are business owners content to draw a salary just like the staff they have had to hire as their businesses grew. Indeed, researchers at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives note that the top one per cent of Canada’s rich receive the lion’s share of their wealth not from inherited wealth or passive investments but from employment income. However, unlike most of us, the “working rich,” to coin a term, are not content to simply siphon a portion of their disposable income into mutual funds or a balanced stock portfolio, hoping that come retirement they’ll have a comfortable nest egg. These are active investors who work as hard at their investments as they do at their careers and who just might offer a few lessons for those of us who look on helplessly as our investments rise and fall at the mercy of global markets.
These blue-collar millionaires are savvy to business principles, hands-on and risk averse, says David Sung, president of Nicola Wealth Management Ltd. in Vancouver, which has made a point of reaching out to this untapped segment of the investment community in recent years. “They have a real aversion to debt. They don’t like living beyond their means, and they tend to like to pay cash for everything they buy. They tend to be really street-smart individuals. They’re very cautious with their investments, and they love hard assets such as real estate.”
It’s a description that fits Coquitlam commercial painter Mark DuMerton, owner and operator of M&L Painting Ltd., which employs anywhere from 40 to 120 staff at any given time. Recent contracts include such massive projects as the Hotel Georgia renovation in downtown Vancouver and Aspac Developments Ltd.’s Harbour Green 3 tower in Coal Harbour.
DuMerton’s introduction to commercial painting came more than 30 years ago when he was 18. A colleague corralled him into a summer job painting service stations. The partnership led to ventures ranging from painting to selling Okanagan fruit out of the back of a truck at a Surrey street corner. When DuMerton married his wife, Lynn, four years later, he dedicated himself to painting full time. The business was home-based at first, but with the help of mentors and a developing network of contacts the business grew, as did his wealth.
The company’s statement of core values includes integrity, honesty and loyalty, but DuMerton sums up his guiding business principle in simple terms: “If we create value for others, we create value for ourselves.”
The proof lies in the business relationships that began developing as M&L grew. As he accumulated more wealth, DuMerton says, people he had met in the course of his business would approach him, asking, “Hey, do you want to come in and buy a commercial building with me?” The result was a number of real estate investments, construction projects and other joint ventures where he could stake some cash and see a return without too much worry. “It’s absolutely relationship based,” DuMerton says. “As I find people who are good at what they’re doing – better than me – and they’re putting their own skin into it, I’m great.”
Those investments range from residential subdivisions throughout the province to Walnut Beach Resort, a 112-room hotel on Lake Osoyoos that opened in 2008. “We go in with lots of cash, and so even through some challenging times in the last little while we’ve never had a cash call, and we’ll still walk away with making a profit,” he says. “Are we going to make what we were making three years ago? Of course not. But that’s what it is.”
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