The power of perseveranc.., p.9
The Power of Perseverance, page 9
The company started by Mira Kulkarni and Samrath Bedi was Mountain Valley Springs India Private Limited. As their first investor, Mahesh Patel joined in February 2002. The company created, developed and manufactured the luxury Ayurveda brand, Forest Essentials.
Mira Kulkarni: ‘Mahesh brought a skill set that was diametrically opposite to the way I envisioned the stores. He came from the more mass set of rules that were considered the right way to set up a retail store. The number of products on the shelves, the navigation and so on. However, because we differed on many points, I think eventually we were able to bring the best of both viewpoints when it came to the Forest Essentials store format.’
Samrath Bedi: ‘Mahesh brought in a certain discipline. He brought a structured way of thinking. Mahesh is logical in his approach—in terms of how we would set up our board meetings, how we would set up certain business practices, how he would look at the future. He was helpful in starting us on that path of just basic business 101, literally. How he would think logically to what the future would hold. How he would start to invest in the future. A lot of the basis ideologies of business in the beginning.’
Forest Essentials is now an Indian multimillion-dollar success story, with 175 stores in India, the United Kingdom and Dubai as of June 2024. The company opened their first international outlet in Covent Garden, London, in November 2022. Eight more stores are confirmed for the Middle East. As further evidence to their rising megastar business status, cosmetics giant Estée Lauder now owns a significant minority of the company.
Mahesh Patel: ‘Mira Kulkarni is an amazing creator of products. Samrath is running the business. They have both been extremely successful. It is probably one of the biggest homegrown brands which has come out in that category. They have received huge accolades and are massively followed. The company is doing extremely well. In the early days, when we were setting up the first retail stores, I was involved. But after that, Mira and Sam have been running the show, and I cannot praise them enough.’
While business success is always a key indicator, more importantly, the relationship which they have built as friends has become family-like.
Samrath Bedi: ‘My wife Karishma came into my life a little later, in 2008. Mahesh and Usha are as much family to me as my own mother is. Mahesh is like a mix of a semi-father and semi-brother. I treat him as both. Usha, of course, is just the loveliest person on earth. Yes, more than Mahesh’s good fortune, I think that we had good fortune in getting to meet them.’
Karishma Bedi: ‘I first met Mahesh during my wedding celebration in India in March 2008. He had a very earthy yet distinguished air about him. He looked thoughtful and was initially somewhat reserved, but you knew when you spoke to him that he really listened, that he read between the lines and knew all the things you wanted to say but didn’t articulate. Spending time in his company made one feel seen and heard. In time, this relationship was strengthened with my affection for both Mahesh and Usha, and theirs for me. They both have been like a silent pillar of support to me over the years and, in time, have come to adopt me like a god daughter.’
Mahesh Patel: ‘We have built a close relationship with Mira, Sam and Karishma. Sam and Karishma’s children call us grandma and grandpa. Because we built such a relationship, there was never a flicker of doubt about integrity or questioning anything. Even though we were minor shareholders and it was their business, we never saw it as “us and them”; it has become our business.’
Samrath Bedi: ‘Mahesh is straightforward. He is generous to a fault. He is not a confrontationist—he doesn’t like confrontations. He is someone for whom I could even use the word, gentle, in a “gentleman” way. He is a hardened businessman; no doubt about it. But he is a gentle, kind and generous person.’
Karishma Bedi: ‘You cannot box Mahesh. He is a force. He is patient when listening to personal woes, pragmatic while discussing work. Worldly, while speaking about people and communities, and even spiritual now, thanks to Usha. He is curious, and I think discovery in life matters to him. He will offer perspectives that most others will not see or will fear. He will make you think of your best case and worst case, be the devil’s advocate and push you—subtly and sometimes not so subtly—until you are doing the best that you can in every situation. He is never tired. He is thoughtful, indulgent, loving, caring and kind and knows not just how to move ahead himself, but also take his community and his people forward with him.’
While the success of Mahesh Patel in India would go on to further shape both his business and personal life in an extremely positive way, there was a price to be paid. His long absences away from his wife and sons in Sydney were creating a rift, which would ultimately result in significant regrets.
Chapter 9
Sydney
Mahesh Patel, Usha Patel and their sons Nikhil and Ajay returned to Sydney, Australia, at the end of 2000. After two exciting years away in India experiencing a new culture and way of life, they found themselves back in familiar surroundings at the family home, which had been leased out during their absence.
While their parents fell back into their own usual routine, with Mahesh resuming his regular business trips overseas, Nikhil and Ajay found it more difficult to adjust.
Ajay Patel: ‘When we came back to Sydney, settling in was a little bit rough for a few years. Australia is idyllic in so many ways. Most people don’t see what the planet is like for others and how they endure and live. I think the moves from Papua New Guinea to Australia and then to India and back to Australia again, really did shape the way I made decisions through my life. It was more the assimilating back in Sydney, which was difficult. It was literally the same people we were going back to school with—we just hadn’t spoken to them in two years. Social groups changed. Friends’ groups changed. It took a little while to settle back in. It happened eventually. I think Nikhil struggled a bit more than I did.’
Nikhil Patel: ‘Moving back to Sydney was a challenge because I had become so comfortable and accustomed to the way of life in India. The culture, and also just being in the majority. Growing up in the Western world, we are all immigrants in a sense. But in this case, while we were immigrants, we weren’t really immigrants. It’s a bit difficult to describe, but in India, I just had that feeling of being in the majority. It was different.’
Despite having to readjust themselves to life back in Australia, Nikhil and Ajay Patel do have happy memories of their time living again in Sydney, though some were more memorable than others.
Ajay Patel: ‘A lot of my memories are around sports and being outdoors, but I do remember having to sneak around Mum and Dad to go to the beach. In hindsight, it was a very dumb thing to do … I have fond memories of going to the movies with Dad. The best few were definitely Star Wars, and when Dad snuck us into the theatre to see Ali G, quoting that film in school at that age was priceless. Lion King and the entire Hamlet arc hit us both really hard, but was a really great way for a kid to mature, with understanding around life, death and legacy. Sports also played a big role in our lives. Dad was competitive, almost always very present at our weekly games, kicking the ball around. Telling us how to kick the ball correctly, up to a point where we would say, “No, no, Dad. This is how we do it now.” He was certainly impactful on how we played sports and how we still enjoy sports, especially soccer and rugby. We had a lot of park time together.’
Nikhil Patel: ‘There was a park across the road from where we lived, and we would always go and play soccer. Dad used to play a lot with us. He is the one who got us into it. I started playing when I was around four and Ajay was three. In the early years, it was more relaxed, and then, as we got older, it became competitive. We would just have a kick around and do some passing drills. I played basketball as well. We had a hoop at the back of the house. Go out after dinner or on Sundays and shoot hoops. We also liked getting out on boat trips in Papua New Guinea or in Sydney. Be out on the water all day and then come home to a good meal.’
Ajay Patel: ‘With Mum, we would do what we called adventure walks. There were a few parks near us in Sydney and you can cross all the way through from one to another and so on. We would just basically get lost and then try and find our way home. That was a lot of fun. I used to enjoy those walks. I think we used to do that more when our dog Rex was there. We would go for these walks when Dad was away, just to get out of the house.’
Mahesh Patel: ‘When we returned to live in Sydney from India, we got our first family dog, Rex. Nikhil was eleven. There was a breeder we found in Windsor Downs in western Sydney, about sixty kilometres away from where we were living. She was very serious about it all and had a questionnaire to be answered on the phone. I let the kids handle it. She didn’t realize she had interviewed Nikhil and not me until we went to pick up the dog!’
Ajay Patel: ‘We rode our bikes around the local area a lot. Dad used to take us bike riding too. I remember getting a scar. I got run over by another cyclist. I would have been aged eleven or twelve. Dad was there. It was this small little road in Double Bay—a no-through road. I think we were crossing, and I hadn’t put my bike into gear and was still fuddling about. This cyclist was coming through, and I got in his way. A hundred per cent, it was my fault. I remember I got clobbered. Grazed up my whole leg. Still got some old scars from it. There was a bit of blood; a good many tears. I think I took a couple of days off from school.’
Mahesh Patel: ‘Yes, I clearly remember Ajay’s bike accident. I freaked out! Seeing the blood on his knees. I was angry at the adult cyclist who was riding so fast in a side lane and secondly upset, seeing my son on the road. He was crying but not as panicky as I was.’
Back in Papua New Guinea, there were two major changes at City Pharmacy in 2001. Both involving the chief executive officer.
Caleb Jarvis: ‘I worked in Papua New Guinea a bit over five years. My wife Ellie, my girlfriend at the time, had moved up a year after I started and lived there with me for about four years. So, I had been there for five. At that point, the change was driven by our personal objectives. We wanted to start a family but felt it would be difficult for us to do it in PNG, and it was time for us to look at moving back to Australia. We had a board meeting and I told Mahesh and Alan at the end, look, the time has come. I started the process of listing the company on the PNG stock exchange. For compliance, we had to rewrite the company’s constitution, going from a private company to a public company. That process took about two years to finally get it listed, but we got there in the end.’
City Pharmacy’s growth as a private company had continued unabated, but Mahesh Patel’s business partner Alan Jarvis was concerned about the personal liability exposure it meant for both of them and suggested they become a publicly listed company on the Port Moresby Stock Exchange.
Mahesh Patel: ‘To be honest, initially, I didn’t really know what becoming a public company meant. But it appealed to Alan, who was eighteen years older than me. When you were a private company, the bank would always ask for a personal guarantee from the shareholders. At that point in time, we said, “Let’s do it.” At least we will get respect from the banks. We will be publicly listed, audited and have transparency. Everything bundles in. It paid off, because it was a compliance listing. We didn’t raise any money from the market to start, but when we needed funds three years later to buy the supermarket chain, that’s when the superannuation funds came in handy.’
City Pharmacy became a public company in 2002.
Mahesh Patel: ‘Alan and I still controlled a lot of the shares. We gave some shares to our staff. We lent them the money and let them pay it back. It was a soft loan, interest-free. I was looking at the share registry recently, and one of our staff now, Tracey Gotele, who purchased shares, was a teenager back then, and she still works for us. Becoming a public company was probably the best thing that happened.’
Now trading as City Pharmacy Limited, the companies’ growth continued. But it was a chance meeting in 2005 that led to an even greater expansion, which would eventually lift the company towards becoming one of the country’s biggest.
The Stop & Shop supermarket chain, owned by the Steamships Trading Company, was up for sale, and the deadline for tender submissions was closing fast. While it was a sale which could potentially impact the City Pharmacy stores located inside the supermarkets, Mahesh Patel was unaware of the opportunity to buy.
Mahesh Patel: ‘I ran into John Dunlop when I was travelling from Fiji to Los Angeles on a Sunday. John had retired and was a director for Steamships. He asked me, “Have you put a bid in for Stop & Shop?” I didn’t know it was for sale. He said the tender closed the following day, a Monday. I was flying off to Los Angeles. I rang my CEO and told him to put in a non-binding offer to Steamships. When I landed in Los Angeles, I rang John and asked, “How much should we bid?” We had not looked at the financials or done any research. John came back after doing some quick research and said, “I think something in the 20 million kina plus range is the right number. So, while I was in Los Angeles, I got our CEO to write a letter, making a non-binding offer for 20 million kina (433 million rupees). Steamships called back and said, “Okay, you guys have got it.” I then had to ring the bank manager and ask, “Will you give us the money?” The bank said if the numbers stack up, they would loan the money and the deal went ahead. We were a much smaller operation back then. This step took us away from just being a pharmacy company into something much bigger.’
The acquisition of the Stop & Shop supermarket chain in 2005 started a ripple effect of financial success and further company expansion over future years.
Now known as the CPL Group of Companies, in 2007 they partnered with Post PNG to co-locate some City Pharmacy retail outlets. In 2009, they acquired the Hardware Haus stores chain from Steamships Trading Company. In 2011, they launched their chain of Boncafé coffee shops. In 2012, they opened Paradise Cinema in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea’s first multiplex cinema. In 2013, they acquired Sydney-based pharmaceutical wholesaler Cost Save Pty Ltd. In 2014, they opened a new concept shopping complex, Waigani Central, in Port Moresby, featuring a do-it-yourself hardware concept store, the largest-ever Stop & Shop supermarket, and a second Paradise Cinema complex.
In 2015, CPL moved into fashion retailing (in partnership with Jack’s of Fiji), with the opening of two ‘Jack’s of PNG’ stores in Port Moresby. The same year, they opened two Prouds Duty Free stores (in partnership with Motibhai & Co.).
Today, the CPL Group is Papua New Guinea’s largest retail and wholesale organization, employing thousands of people. All of this began with one man running a small pharmacy with his wife, a man who had a vision for something much, much bigger.
Mahesh Patel: ‘The most important thing about expansion is having the right management. But unless you are bigger, you cannot employ proper management. You can get pharmacists to manage the drug stores, but then as you get bigger as a company, you need a marketing manager, you need an HR department, you need an IT department and an operations guy. I was still managing all these people, but I needed to replace myself. That’s when I knew, for the company to hire somebody of calibre and quality, it has to be big enough for us to afford the right person. That was the vision behind it. To get big enough to employ really talented people.’
One of those highly talented people employed during the companies’ public company expansion was Ravi Singh. Born in India to a career bureaucrat mother and veterinary doctor father, he obtained an honours degree in Zoology at Delhi University. He then undertook an entry exam for a management degree and qualified 42nd out of a field of 35,000 students. Two years later, he graduated with a master’s degree in business management.
Ravi Singh: ‘After my master’s graduation, there were several campus placement offers. I chose an upcoming fashion retail firm and worked with them for three years. Then I moved on to another leading fashion and grocery retail business in India and worked with them for six months. I then received an opportunity to work in Papua New Guinea. My boss from my first job was then working at City Pharmacy Limited. He offered me a data analyst job and I joined on 19 May 2003. From there, I consistently grew in the company and had the role of retail operations manager, general manager buying, and then finally the acting CEO role on 29 July 2008. I was confirmed as the company CEO on 1 July 2009.
‘I first met Mahesh Patel on a hot Monday afternoon sometime in July 2003, when he came to the Waigani office. My first interactions with Mahesh were limited as he was the founder of the company and I had a few bosses between me and him. What I remember distinctly was that there was a kind of buzz when he was around. An energy as everyone in the office wanted to be on their best behaviour. There was a board meeting on that visit and though I had nothing to do with the meeting, it all seemed very busy in the office. There always was and is to this date, a positive energy that’s infectious when Mahesh is around.
‘Mahesh always believed in making the seemingly impossible a reality. On one of his trips to Mount Hagen, he met up with some farmers. At the time, getting PNG-grown fresh vegetables into Port Moresby was a struggle. The farmers in Hagen said, “We can grow what you want, we just want a market.” Mahesh made a bold commitment to the farmers that he would provide them the market they needed and thus set in motion the setting up of a completely new fresh-produce supply chain in extremely difficult conditions. We started by doing charter flights four days a week to get the vegetables from Hagen. Then we set up a fresh produce depot behind the Waigani showroom. We got the first potato washer in the country and started sorting out the tonnes of vegetables we were getting from Hagen.
‘We were doing something which had never been done before in PNG, but Mahesh was single-minded about this and committed to making it a reality. After a lot of ups and downs, we were able to set up a very good fresh produce depot, which now supports thousands of farmers. It started with a commitment from Mahesh: “I will give you the market that you want.” If that is not inspirational from a business perspective, I don’t know what is.’
