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I spent only two years as a customer’s man, but in that short span I learned an immense amount about how the financial world works and doesn’t.

Yes, before I became a financial reporter, I was what they used to call a customer’s man.

A glance at the nearby photograph of my graduating class of fellow stockbrokers in late 1981 shows that “customer’s man” was still a fairly accurate term even when I entered the industry.

Early last week Hunt was tucking into a steak dinner in the Rib Room of London's Carlton Tower hotel when a Merrill Lynch customer's man seated near by spotted him.

As a customer's man for the brokerage firm of Draper Dobie & Co.