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PEP SPECIAL REPORT (Part I): Beverly Hills 6750 admits to problems, but says it’s not closing down

PEP spent more than two hours with the key people of Beverly Hills 6750, managing director Dr. Eduardo Santos (left), general manager Suzette Lopez (right), and Dr. Abe Marinduque (not in photo) to discuss the major issues of their clinic and the man who started it all.

courtesy of www.bh6750.com

PEP SPECIAL REPORT (Part I): Beverly Hills 6750 admits to problems, but says it’s not closing down

Jo-Ann Maglipon and Karen Pagsolingan

Tuesday, February 26, 2008
03:36 PM

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Of David's role in the company, Dr. Santos would explain: "He had the sales pitch. He had a concept. He's the proponent of this project. So, he was able to essentially convince a group of investors to come in. Again, that was his sales pitch. He convinced me to join his team."

The link to the Filipino-Chinese group was also David, according to Dr. Santos. The doctor added that the investors gave David a 10-percent share in the clinic. He did not have to put out any money.

Dr. Marinduque explained it further: "He was an industrial partner because he conceived the company and the concept, so he was given equity in the company."

Asked what David's salary was, Dr. Santos said, "He had a representation allowance of fifty thousand pesos a month and his profitability would have actually kicked in at the time the return of investment could have been completed, which he predicted to be at 1.3 years. And thereafter, I'm not sure what the contract stipulated, but he would have received something."

TRUSTING DAVID. Asked to describe how Beverly Hills 6750 was set up, Dr. Ed Santos replied: "A lot of it was really based on trust."

Such was the level of trust, Dr. Santos admitted, that David was made to take charge of the company and its finances. He was made the sole signatory in all of the clinic's financial transactions.

"Again, because it was on the level of trust," stressed Dr. Santos, to which Suzette Lopez and Dr. Abe Marinduque both gave their assent.

PEP asked: Are Dr. Santos and his fellow investors now saying that they, all educated doctors or hard-nosed businessmen or both, never once questioned David's facts and figures? That they never asked to speak to their partners at the American institute? That they never communicated with the institute at any time during the start-up period and through more than 15 months of operation?

In silence, the two doctors and Suzette shook their heads to mean that, indeed, they never once did any of these things.

When PEP noted that the only way the public would believe this, is if the public were to believe that the investors were all naïve, Dr. Santos said that would be about right: "You might say we were naïve, or stupid, but that's the way it happened. We were stupid, but we weren't liars."

The doctor, a University of the Philippines graduate, reiterated that "trust" played a big role: "[The business] was built on a very strong concept [but it] was also built on a very strong level of trust. You know, as a matter of fact, one of our investors in the U.S. asked, ‘Ed, what do you know of David?' And I said, ‘You know, if you want to invest you have to approach this investment as, uh, as an investment, because I can't really vouch for him, because I don't know him.'

"That's what I told him [the investor]... When you come here you make a decision first ‘coz I cannot vouch for him. ‘Coz David and I were just really also introduced by a pastor.'"

PEP asked: Did Beverly Hills 6750 at least send representatives to its partner clinic in the U.S.?

"He did not," answered Dr. Santos, referring to David. "There were two occasions, actually [when we attempted]...One of our plastic surgeons, our senior surgeon, went to the United States, met up with David, and he [the senior surgeon] was insisting, ‘Why don't you bring me to Beverly Hills Surgical Institute? That, I want to observe.' [David] always evaded the question. And he never brought him [the senior surgeon]. That was last year.

"Again, the request of [one of our] anesthesiologists was [in the] last quarter of last year. You know, ‘Bring us to Beverly Hills Surgical Institute. We want to observe also how they do their anesthesia work.' Again, he [David] had no answer."

Meantime, in an email to PEP last December 27, David had insisted that the Institute had trained at least one of Beverly Hills 6750's doctors: "Tom Oseransky and Dr. Daniel Shin had three or four clinics running at the same time at the time we signed our agreement. We had even sent one of our dermas to their clinic to train."

(Tom Oseransky is the person who signed the 2005 Beverly Hills 6750 and Beverly Hills Surgical Institute "Franchise Agreement" with David Bunevacz. Oseransky carried the title of vice president for operations of the Institute, and was presumed to be representing the latter. David was representing Beverly Hills 6750 as the latter's president. Dr. Santos speculated that Tom might be a "classmate of David.")

Asked about the alleged training, Dr. Santos said, "There was only one occasion perhaps that our dermatologist, our senior dermatologist, went to the U.S. And he [David] arranged for a visit. [But not] to Beverly Hills Surgical Institute, but to a place called Pacific Dermatology.

"And according to [our] dermatologist, it's really just a one-group, one-room, laser clinic-something like that. So it wasn't like it was a big operation. David did arrange for that, but it was not Beverly Hills Surgical Institute. It was a place called Pacific Dermatology."

PEP wanted to know: Wasn't that dubious enough?

"Again it was the persuasive ability of David to ano [win one over]," Dr. Santos answered. "Like, for example, our plastic surgeon, a few weeks ago, when this [PEP revelation] had come out, ‘Kaya pala, kaya pala. There's no place he wanted to bring me to, even if I insisted to go there. Kaya pala.' ‘Yan ang reaction, ‘kaya pala.'"

And the doctor admitted that there were instances when David would bring them grand news of coming partnerships.

"There was always a continuing saga or story," Dr. Santos said of David's style. "He would come up, let's say September, ‘Oh gosh, there's a Canadian group who wants to buy us out. Everybody, all the shareholders, will make money...' [Something like] 1.3 percent, money back, less 15-percent ownership of the company, so that's 1.3 premium per annum. ‘Just hold on guys, hold on guys!' May mga kuwento siyang ganun. And this happened two times, one with a Singaporean group, and another with the Canadian group."

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