Today we’d like to introduce you to Bharat Sangani.
Bharat, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I was born in India and am a cardiologist by profession. I finished my cardiology training in Columbus, Ohio and started practicing in 1988 in Gulfport, Mississippi. I began working in real estate in 1992 in the hospitality industry, and worked on the creation of Encore Enterprises from 1997-1998 with Pat Barber. Even while I was focusing on real estate, I never ceased my work as a cardiologist, and eventually I had built up my practice to 70,000 patients. Our real estate portfolio had also been built up to almost 2,000 employees, until Hurricane Katrina hit and everything we had worked for was destroyed. The storm compelled us to move our company headquarters to Dallas, Texas, where we flourished and continued to expand. We had a mid-nine figure exit in 2007 when several assets were sold with Goldman Sachs as the primary buyer. Today we have over 1600 associates across the company and $1.6 billion in assets under management with partial or total ownership. We have completed transactions worth about $1.6 billion with deal level returns of above 50% IRR, and we are proud to say that no investor has ever lost money in our company.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Hurricane Katrina has been the biggest obstacle we have ever faced, although it wasn’t only our company that was hurt. Overnight we lost our headquarters, my family and I lost our home, and 34 of our employees lost their homes as well. But in spite of everything, the storm turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it made our company stronger and brought us all to a better place.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Encore Enterprises, Inc. is a real estate investment company that buys and develops hospitality, multi-family, retail and office properties. We are a value-add, disciplined company with a track record of creating superior deal level returns for our investors. We also highly value transparency and strive to create a company culture of excellence.
What were you like growing up?
I was just a workaholic nerd growing up, but when I met and married Smita, she brought color and joy to my life. Pat Barber also greatly impacted my life; he taught me business sophistication and has completely changed the way we run our company today.
Contact Info:
- Address: 5005 LBJ Freeway
Suite 1200 Dallas, TX, 75244 - Website: www.encore.bz
- Phone: 214 259 7007
- Email: bsangani@encore.bz
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