When it comes time to hang up the sneakers, cleats, or skates, many professional athletes turn to the financial services industry to help maintain their lifestyles - a fact Paragon Financial Corp. is hoping can help it expand its mortgage origination business.
The Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., mortgage brokerage announced last week that it had signed hockey Hall of Famer Phil Esposito to a multiyear employment agreement. Paragon wants to have 15 to 20 well-connected athletes like Mr. Esposito on its roster in the near future to refer business its way, said Scott Vining, its chief financial officer, in an interview Friday.
The athletes "are kind of our marketing arm to the higher-level contacts within developers, builders, etc.," he said. "There are a lot of guys that put their faces on things, but that's not what we're after. We're after guys that will be active, make calls," and set up meetings. They will go through Paragon's training program for new brokers, "so at least they understand the business and the products," Mr. Vining said.
The goal is not to make them salespeople but to have them network as they normally do at events like charity golf tournaments, which Paragon intends to organize.
"We're just trying to get them to open the door, stand there, and help us deliver to the client," Mr. Vining said. They will be paid commissions for closed loans that result from their relationships.
Paragon, founded in 2001, is licensed in Florida and South Carolina and originates about $150 million of residential mortgages a year in those states, Mr. Vining said. It plans to make acquisitions to get licenses in high-growth areas like California, Arizona, and parts of the Northeast, where many athletes reside and have contacts, he said. Paragon has already had to turn down some business brought in by Mr. Esposito because it lacked a license in a place where the deal could be done, Mr. Vining said.
Paragon does not want to grow too fast. "What you find is that a couple of these guys are pretty well wired," Mr. Vining said. "The thing you don't want to do is hurt them and their relationships by not being able to deliver the service."
Paragon came up with the idea of athletes-as-marketers and pitched it to several sports agents, who in turn arranged discussions with some athletes, he said.
Most of the original candidates were football players, because Paragon executives already knew "quite a few" because the company is near Jacksonville, Fla., where many retired players live, Mr. Vining said. He met Mr. Esposito, who works out of Paragon's Tampa office, through a mutual contact.
"We started going through the retired NFL players directory to see what businesses they were in, and a lot of them were in the financial services business," Mr. Vining said. "At the end of the day, these guys have got one thing when they leave [their sport] and that's brand: their name and the contacts they've made."
