INDO-US In The News

Tampa mortgage company anticipates industry needs

Tampa Bay Business Journal – December 3, 2004
by Ken Salgat
Staff writer

Paul Beraquit, president of Paragon Mortgage, left, and Sachin Patel, executive VP, review site plans for new projects in the Tampa Bay area.
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TAMPA — When Paul Beraquit and Santosh Govindaraju formed Paragon Mortgage Inc. in August 1999, they had a vision to change the mortgage financing process.

The partners started the company with a $750 investment from each and a sense of what the market needed.

“We started with basically nothing,” said Beraquit. “The one thing we both did have, however, was contacts and knowledge.”

Prior to starting Paragon, Govindaraju was a trader at Lehman Brothers Inc. He said this experience, coupled with what he perceived to be grave deficiencies in the mortgage-lending industry, spawned the new company.

“We focused first on investing in and building our processes,” said Govindaraju. “Our next focus was on the promotion of our company and on building goodwill throughout the community. Our current focus is on finalizing the design of our own proprietary mortgage products.”

The new mortgage products will guarantee to residential customers that closings are completed in one week. Commercial customers can expect closings within 30 days.

“This industry has more hurdles that need to be jumped to get deals done than any bureaucracy I have ever dealt with,” said Govindaraju. “By leveraging technology to simplify decisions, managing processes for quality, and promoting products that the market demands, we believe we will become a leading national player in the next three years.”

Over the years, the business has evolved to include commercial mortgage lending, private lending, commercial development and real estate investments.

Govindaraju, 29, is CEO and manages residential mortgage operations, commercial mortgage operations, investment management and financial planning.

Beraquit, 44, is president and director of residential mortgage lending. He is the hands-on manager of the firm’s operations and maintains accountability within the firm.

The company started with just three: Govindaraju, Beraquit and a processor. By the end of the second year, Paragon had grown to 10 and presently has 46 employees.

Unlike a lot of startup ventures, Paragon has always had two offices — one in Tampa and another in New Port Richey.

The Tampa office was a small room with 200 square feet, and the New Port Richey office was a basement with 400 square feet. Today, the Tampa office has been relocated to a 4,000-square-foot space and the New Port Richey office to 3,000 square feet. The company now also has an office in Clearwater.

Beraquit said it was the unique marriage of their individual styles, not to mention their respective ages, that proved to be a successful formula.

“I’m old school and Santosh is the New Age guy, but that allows us to establish a strong foundation from the get-go,” said Beraquit.

“I personally think our success is the result of the team we put together. We are well rounded and able to accomplish so much because we have the right people to achieve success in a very short period of time. I was actually surprised that we were lucky to find the right people from the start.”

But the process was not as easy as it now appears. Both partners said there were growing pains early on in the process.

“The biggest surprise in running a business has been the reality that ‘you really have to run your business,’” said Govindaraju. “I consider myself to be a world-class financier, however, that means nothing when running a business. I advise others all the time, ‘You can be great at your profession, but prepare yourself for a challenge that you were never trained to do.’ Expertise in running a business can only be developed through the school of hard knocks.”

Paragon has grown as a lean institution by focusing on the training and education of its principals and staff.

“We are 75 percent there with our management team,” said Govindaraju. “We need a few more good people to round out the team.”

ksalgat@bizjournals.com | 813.342.2477

Tampa Bay Business Journal – November 12, 2004
by Margie Manning
Staff writer

TAMPA — For Drs. Kiran and Pallavi Patel, health care is a family affair.

The husband-and-wife physicians and philanthropists, who donated $400,000 to help establish a charter elementary school at the University of South Florida, are funding a clinic to serve the 190 children at the school.

The couple spent about $30,000-$50,000 to build and equip the Dr. Pallavi Patel Pediatric Care Center, which occupies the southwest corner of the USF/Dr. Kiran C. Patel Charter School.

The bigger investment, said Kiran Patel, a cardiologist and health care entrepreneur, is the ongoing commitment to staff the center, which will provide routine checkups and treatment for minor illnesses.

Dr. Pallavi Patel, a pediatrician, will be at the clinic seeing children a couple of times a week, and her two daughters and a son-in-law — all physicians — also plan to volunteer at the facility. Their eldest daughter, Dr. Sonali Judd, specializes in family practice; her husband, Dr. Scott Judd, is a pediatrician; and their youngest daughter, Dr. Sheetal Patel, is a radiologist.

Kiran Patel said he hopes to recruit specialists, including dentists, optometrists and psychiatrists, to provide pro bono services. “Because we are on a university campus, we might draw nursing students or those in social work,” he said.

Poorest of the poorMany of the charter school students are from the economically depressed neighborhood known as the University Community area; most are from low-income families and are at risk of failing in other school settings, Kiran Patel said. “The original concept of the school was to help socially handicapped people … to target the poorest of the poor and provide them a good opportunity,” he said.

The clinic was a natural evolution, he said.

“A healthy mind needs a healthy body,” he said. “Their parents might not have the time or the resources to take their children to the doctor.”

Children who get immediate care for medical issues will miss less school and have a better chance at success, said Pallavi Patel.

There are 21 charter schools serving 3,200 children in Hillsborough County, said Charlene Staley, Hillsborough School Board’s charter liaison. One of those, Tampa Bay Academy, has a residential treatment center providing mental health services.

“As far as what USF/Patel is doing, that is unique,” Staley said.

Pallavi Patel said the clinic is designed for those students who fall between the cracks, such as students whose families don’t qualify for public medical programs and don’t have private health insurance.

About 12.4 percent of Florida children between the ages of 5 and 9 — the ages of most children in the charter school — lack health insurance, according to a study released Nov. 3 by the Agency for Health Care Administration, a slight decrease from 1999. In Hillsborough County, 14.1 percent of the total population is uninsured, up from 13.9 percent in 1999, the study said.

Building WellCareThe philanthropically active Patels owe much of their wealth to WellCare Health Plans Inc. (NYSE: WCG). It provides managed care services for government-sponsored health care programs, focusing on Medicaid and Medicare.

Kiran Patel, who is a cardiologist by training, bought WellCare when it was a small HMO based in New Port Richey in 1992 and grew it into a $1-billion company before selling a majority stake in 2002 to Soros Private Equity Investors LP, a fund associated with billionaire George Soros. That sale was valued at $209.6 million in February 2004, WellCare filings with the SEC prior to its IPO in July show.

Kiran Patel currently is chairman of Visionary Medical Systems, a privately held physician practice management software firm. Pallavi Patel is president and CEO of Bay Area Primary Care Inc., a medical practice with eight area locations.

mmmanning@bizjournals.com | 813.342.2473