Second of three parts. See “Otake Brings Brotman, Steadily Stabilizing, Within One Step of Quitting the Wilderness of Bankruptcy,” in Monday, Oct. 13, edition. Keyword: Otake.
Days short of one year on the job, CEO Stan Otake appears to be the executive to be chiefly credited with saving Culver City’s historically beleaguered hospital.
Brotman Medical Center was wallowing in years, if not decades, of financial failures and odorous morale before Mr. Otake was brought to the 5-acre mid-town campus to execute a walloping turnaround that had eluded every single predecessor — all of whom shared an odious allergy for being publicity allergic.
Several years ago, one of his predecessors sat down for a lengthy but not terribly probing interview. Even then, the administrator’s answers were decidedly amorphous. At the end of 30 minutes, the administrator stood up and announced that the story would have to be personally evaluated before it could be sanctioned for print. The story never was written.
Ownership teams came and went, with the scantiest public notice. They were so purposely obscure that the (mostly) gentlemen could have walked through Downtown in bikinis at high noon and never been recognized.
No Surprises Here
Mr. Otake, who has spent the heart of his professional life, 25 years, in healthcare, came to Culver City with his eyes open. He was acutely aware that 84-year-old Brotman broadly was regarded in the community as a shipwreck just marking time until it reached the bottom of the ocean.
Brotman’s public relations had been non-existent for almost as long as anyone could remember.
Their messages to the public were rare, bland and never seemed to reach a meaningful segment of an indifferent population.
It was a mutual unlove affair.
Tall, sturdy and casual, Mr. Otake is a big, open-faced guy who scarcely resembles the faceless, invisible previous leaders of Brotman — professionally or sartorially.
He favors short-sleeved, open-necked shirts and slacks as opposed to button-down, pin-striped business suits that only will accept a red or a blue necktie and glum expressions.
When he strode into the main offices looking as if he had just come from a picnic, instead of resembling the frowning chairman of the board on his way to a meeting with fellow stiff-necked peers, oldtimers did not know what to think.
Running Uphill
When he said his objective was to fish Brotman out of the bankruptcy pond within a year,there may have been enough snickering doubt to turn a sunny day into a cloudy one. No one had ever heard of such a thing.
For his first six months, Mr. Otake quietly, and effectively, went about his business. If there was even a hint of fanfare, nobody heard the trumpets. The community didn’t know much about the big guy, except that his salvage job, to the surprise of many, seemed to be working, solidifying Brotman’s chronic jelly foundation.
The arrival of spring coincided with the unwelcome entrance of a new lender, Prime Healthcare, Inc., of Victorville, which replaced a Maryland company. Prime is a controversial little group that has attracted an uncommon number of critics in recent years as it has cruised across Southern California buying up hospitals just before they were about to go over the cliff.
Although by Mr. Otake’s accounting, Brotman all along had been on course to escape bankruptcy on his arbitrary schedule, Prime’s entry had the effect of awakening a sleeping giant. Their arrival was as unappetizing to Brotman as an unpopular brother-in-law who knocks on the door and announces that he needs a place to land for the next two years.
Prime Became Secondary
Prime had designs on taking over, as it has elsewhere. Perhaps because Prime’s presence was hostile from the beginning, Brotman now more than ever was motivated to negotiate a deal for a new partner, and that is where the Jewish Home for the Aging, based in the Valley where it has two campuses, became the No. 1 player.
Less than 90 days after Prime declared that there was a new sheriff in Brotman-town, Mr. Otake and his cohorts had finalized what appears to a hospital-lucrative deal with Jewish Home officials. Ninety more days further on, the Jewish Home’s acquisition of the western half of the Brotman campus for a little more than $21 million seems to have been an ideal transaction in which both sides won, each achieving its strongly desired aims.
For the first time in its 96-year history, the Jewish Home will have visibility for its potential Jewish clientele on the heavily Jewish Westside, and financially starved Brotman gained a path out of financial jail.
After filing a disclosure statement and reorganization plan with the federal bankruptcy court on Sept. 29, Brotman’s imminent fate is out of the hands of Mr. Otake and his fellow architects until Judge Sherry Bluebond renders here decision three weeks from this morning, Nov. 6.
(To be continued)
