Ricardo Lecompte, General Director, PASA • Interview
With two plants in Mexico, PASA is one of the leading manufacturers of waterproofing materials in the country.
What is your view of the construction industry in Mexico and how does it impact your business?
What motivated you to create a co-working center for the healthcare industry?
Wellmedic is the world’s first specialized co-working space in the health sector. I have almost 15 years of experience working in the world of real estate, which led me to become an investor in real estate and get acquainted with different business models. This concept was conceived in the US 30 years ago and evolved into the co-working space model it is today. This model of intelligent workspaces is an ideal solution to promote business entrepreneurship and facilitate the operations of small- and medium-sized businesses. When I realized that there was no such solution for the healthcare sector, I decided to invest and invite investment partners to create the first health center in the city of Monterrey. In December 2019, we completed four years of operations. We started the first unit with 30 offices in a 1,000-sqm center with fully equipped offices. We currently have seven units in operation, and the model has been strengthening. Today, we serve a little more than 200 specialists, mainly doctors from more than 35 different disciplines.
What is the advantage of having a Wellmedic office compared to having one in a private hospital?
What we do is offer our spaces to psychologists, nutritionists, dentists, and doctors of all specialties. We have all kinds of health professionals, which is something that does not happen in hospitals. Wellmedic’s concept is to empower health professionals as an institution and help connect patients with the best doctors in the market. As a platform for doctors, we provide all the tools a health professional needs to exponentially grow. That is why we are disruptive in this industry. Our focus is on helping them become entrepreneurs and health entrepreneurs.
What kind of investment model do you use to open centers in such a short time?
When I created the Wellmedic Health Centers brand, I knew it was a model that would grow in scale. These infrastructure units called health centers are buildings that are becoming the home of high-specialty doctors. We intend to have one center in each state, though states like Mexico City, Nuevo León, or Jalisco justify opening more than one.
How many centers do you plan to open in 2020?
The Wellmedic Connect model gathers general practitioners. Our high-end infrastructure aims to offer a decent workspace and give the patient a suitable environment, a format intended for first contact medicine. In five years, we want to have at least 500 centers. This is actually a model we intend to have in high-traffic areas and housing complexes.
How much capital will the construction of 500 centers require?
We will need USD15 million to build 500 centers. Our model is a real estate fractional investment model. Several individual investment partners become owners of a piece of property, and Wellmedic as a brand becomes the long-term tenant for these equity investors. This investment partner becomes our lessor, and Wellmedic acquires a simultaneous commitment where it sells a property or real estate that is growing in surplus value. We usually buy the land and develop it. We are a health and real estate company. Now we are in Playa del Carmen. Wellmedic has three formats in infrastructure: health centers are the second level, while the first is Wellmedic Connect, which are small units of 50-100sqm. The health centers have around 100sqm. The third consists of clusters, which are macro real estate projects. We are currently building a 15,000-sqm cluster in Playa del Carmen. It will be our first medical building with operating rooms, a hotel for patients, a shopping plaza, and health market with pharmacies, laboratories, a gym, and spa. ✖
Aims to build centers with USD15 million investment