Advising the very wealthy can prove quite rewarding personally and professionally. Being business partners with the very wealthy can translate into a substantial personal fortune-and it can be a lot of fun. Few professionals have the skills, disposition and mindset to work for and with the ultra-affluent. Pat Trammell, the founder of Omega Capital Enterprises in Birmingham, Ala., is one of those advisors.
Prince: What type of firm is Omega Capital Enterprises?
Trammell: Omega Capital Enterprises is our holding company. Presently, the firm encompasses two basic categories of businesses. The first is Omega Capital Advisors, a high-end wealth transfer and life insurance brokerage. The other is Omega Capital Equity Partners. This entity is more geared to our private equity-type initiatives.
We're not trying to be anyone we're not. The common theme of the companies is trying to identify and develop compelling ideas, provide innovative solutions and to have a focused plan of execution. What ties everything we do together is our relationships with the very wealthy that we've developed. Sometimes that might be in the form of capital, and in others it might be access. Quite often it's in the form of expertise. But at the end of the day, all roads lead to providing specialized services or ideas and connecting them to the very wealthy.
Omega Capital Advisors, for example, is a firm that provides proprietary and very specialized life insurance to the exceptionally wealthy. Insurance is often the solution to numerous issues or problems very successful people in the world face. In addition, because of our connection to these highly successful and motivated people, the firm provides its expertise to the institutional and employee benefit markets as well.
One of our primary strategies is cultivating and developing our relationships with the very wealthy through our event company. The Charitable Resource Group not only gives us the opportunity to put on events for our clients and important relationships, it's also the way we give back by putting on and assisting charities in their fund-raising efforts. We put on 23 events in some form or fashion in 2011. We recently hosted an event on Bourbon Street for the BCS Championship Game. Over 50 people with net worths in excess of $50 million attended the event, as did people from the world of sports and entertainment. These events are all about connectivity, access and, most of the time, just enjoying ourselves. Many of our ideas and best relationships have originated from these events.
Omega Capital Equity Partners is the entity where we are bringing together our ultra-affluent relationships to invest in very selected private equity-type opportunities. This is not a fund. To some degree these are club-type deals. They're our exclusive deals where we have invested our money and we're trying to build a business ourselves. Our first deals have been seeded with funds from some of our wealthy relationships.
In addition, we employ some innovative financing programs sponsored by the federal government that encourages foreign investment from other countries like China, Korea and certain South American countries. Because of the makeup of our deals, most have qualified for some form of tax incentive programs that are also sponsored by the federal government. As a result, we're seeing ourselves partnering with institutional investors as well as the very wealthy.
We firmly believe this part of our business is where Omega Capital Enterprises' real fortunes will be created and grown.
Prince: How did you end up building Omega Capital Enterprises?
Trammell: I wish I could tell you that I did some intense analytic assessment or it was part of some master plan. The reality is a lot simpler. I just listened to what many of my clients were telling me about their businesses and their interests. Over the years, I discovered I have an ability to see an idea, and then figure out how to bring together the right team of people to leverage the opportunity.
Prince: Could you walk through this concept in a little more detail?
Trammell: I started in the life insurance business almost 25 years ago. With Omega Capital Advisors, we're still very much in this business. In fact, in the last 60 days of 2011, we placed over $75 million of death benefits for three of our clients.
My goal in this business was to partner with the right people and build one of the best life insurance firms in the country. But that was the only focus of the firm. About 15 years ago, I heard Dan Sullivan talk about a concept called "unique abilities." He said that very few people are million-dollar marketers and also million-dollar technicians. And the key to creating a high level of success is to bring the two different parties together to leverage their respective talents.
That's what we did. My strength or unique ability was definitely not in devising sophisticated tax-mitigation strategies. The place I had an unfair advantage was and is in connecting and building rapport with some of the wealthiest people and families in the country.
Even today, as our firm evolves, develops and expands, I do the exact same thing. Across the board in every one of our business ventures, we build the finest technical team possible and partner with them to bring innovative ideas and solutions to our clients and business partners. Our goal is to have everyone involved with us focusing only on their unique ability or in an area where they have an unfair advantage.
Over the years I had the good fortune to develop this group of ultra-affluent clients and relationships. All we did was decide to look for a few other arrows in the quiver to bring to them for consideration. Our new endeavors, the deals we're currently working on, follow the exact same model as we've implemented for the past 25 years. My role is nothing more than to provide the vision and then identify and connect the right relationships-whether that's the technical expertise needed or the people who can provide whatever particular financial backing that's required. I rarely bring any technical value to the deal.
Prince: Can you give us an example of one of your larger, more involved deals?
Trammell: We developed a very compelling story in our life insurance business. We will only approach our very wealthy relationships in a way that resonates with them. We'll only go to them with a very viable and meaningful proposition. As we look to add opportunities to our business it's very important to me to find the right ideas-ideas that are not only unique, but also very compelling.
Finding the first idea and opportunity took almost three years. For the last 18 months, we've developed a business model where we're partnering with megachurches to build senior living facilities on their campuses. I connected with this opportunity immediately. For one, I got the affinity aspect of the model. My dad died when I was 6 years old. My mother was a schoolteacher and it didn't matter what the cost-she was going to send me to the high school associated with our church. Second, I had seen the model about two years beforehand on a trip with our pastor to a 40,000-person church in Palm Beach, Fla.
We've invested a great deal of time and money to develop the business model. We've assembled a team on the operational side of the business that's unparalleled in the market. This culminated with our partnership with CRSA/LCS as our developer and operator-our technical partner.
Again, my role was to see the vision-possibly expand on it a little. Identify the expertise and people needed to execute the model. Then connect them together with the resources needed to fund the projects and model.
When we started the process, we anticipated approaching some of our high-net-worth relationships on the funding side. Based on a high level of trust, we have a few of them involved. As I mentioned, we employ some innovative capital sources. We've brought together various federal programs in a unique way. In fact, Greenberg Traurig, our legal advisor, recently applied for a patent on the concept.
We'll break ground on our first three senior living projects the second quarter of 2012. In addition, we have 50 to 60 churches somewhere in the pipeline. We believe the worldwide market for these senior living projects is over 10,000 churches.
Prince: Since all your deals are not this extensive, can you talk about a less elaborate project?
Trammell: Completely by accident, we've gotten into the film and entertainment business. We recently started Omega Capital Entertainment under Omega Capital Equity Partners. About two years ago, because of our relationship with a very famous celebrity coupled with the fact we could raise capital, we were approached about getting involved in a movie. That particular project did not work out, but we began looking into the industry and other potential projects.
About that time, I started having conversations with a friend of mine from Birmingham, Ala., who wrote the New York Times bestseller Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer, based on the unique fans associated with Alabama football. It quickly became clear that for a film based on the book to reach its fullest potential, the ideal would be to get people involved from the state of Alabama on the production and financial sides.
We recently began to secure the rights to the screenplay written by Callie Khouri, the Oscar-winning writer of Thelma and Louise. In addition, we've partnered with Monnie Wills-producer of The Darkest Hour, which was released in December-to provide the technical expertise.
This industry is a very different type of business on the financial side. It's certainly not a venture that most people should consider. However, our objective with Omega Capital Entertainment is to build an Alabama-based film company-there are many very successful people in the entertainment industry with strong ties to the state-that promotes the business and in doing so creates industry, jobs, revenues and positive public relations for the state. We expect Rammer Jammer will be our initial project to get the ball rolling.
We've also partnered with Sundance award-winning producer Patrick Cunningham, who is the founding partner of the production company Maybach and Cunningham. His 2011 film Martha, Marcy, Mary and Marlene also won an award at the Cannes Film Festival last year.
Because of the relationships we have and continue to develop with large churches in the senior living business, we're exploring some "faith-based" film opportunities. We're also working on a reality TV show that has a connection in the college football world.
Prince: It's clear there's a broad range of private equity deals you're involved with. You've also said you're not a technical expert. Can you tell us how you approach putting these kinds of deals together?
Trammell: I firmly believe our model is exactly the same regardless of the endeavor. If you look at the various deals we've discussed, there's a common theme. We take our unique abilities, which I believe is my ability to see and create a vision, and then identify the right technical partners based on the particular endeavor. Then we connect the various parties together to create a powerful, synergistic and compelling opportunity for everyone involved. What I do, whether it's in the life insurance business, the senior living business or the entertainment business, doesn't really change at all.
At Omega Capital Enterprises, there are a number of factors that come into play. The most important factor is the networking. It's the ability to bring various parts together that make it all work.
Still, at the end of the day, it's all about execution. The people we partner with, from the ultra-affluent investor to the highly technical partner, all have one trait in common. They execute. They have a long history of achieving high levels of success. They also buy into the concept of the leverage you can create by combining these relationships together in a very strategic and synergistic way.
My primary role has evolved into being a connector, whether it's ideas or relationships. When we recently brought together a variety of ways to capitalize our senior living projects, an advisor who is generally considered to be the national expert in the field commented, "I cannot believe I didn't think of that."
I also hope I have the ability to get two or more parties who are superstars in their own right to see the value of collaborating, and by doing so creating what we hope are spectacular projects and opportunities. I try my best to find the right combination of people who quickly buy into the vision concerning particular projects.
I think when you can pull this together you can create compelling business ventures. Our experience over the last two years is that when you have compelling business ventures, there's not a whole lot of selling involved. There's a lot of talent and capital in the market for these types of opportunities.
Prince: What do you see as the future of Omega Capital Enterprises?
Trammell: I'm a huge believer in Nick Saban, the University of Alabama football coach's philosophy of process. We try to wake up every day and do what we're supposed to that day. You cannot build 100 senior living facilities until you've built one, then three, then ten.
With that said, even though we've only been at this for a short time, I already see a trend where opportunities create business ventures, which create more opportunities. When people begin to see you can truly assemble the right team, and that team executes, they start to come to you.
I'm recognizing that one key factor to sustained success is the ability to say no. This lets us stay true to the business ventures we're focused on. You quickly come to realize that your most valuable personal commodity is time. Still, Omega Capital Enterprises wants to be appropriately opportunistic. I'm going to continue to build the infrastructure in a way that's designed to take advantage of high-caliber business endeavors when they arise. If an attractive deal or idea comes along, and we can develop or nurture it, as well as see a way for it to make sense to the very wealthy people in our network, then Omega Capital will certainly give it a long, hard look.
I'm very excited about the current array of business ventures that are already under the Omega Capital Enterprises umbrella. Even more than that, I'm amazed at the various very wealthy and technically adept people that are standing behind these business ventures. Because of them, I'm very confident that you'll see us expanding the businesses in our quiver for years to come.