)
VETPARTNERS is picking up more vet practices, the company on track for annual turnover above $70 million.
Since acquiring rival AussiePaws in May, Sydney-based VetPartners has grown by three more practices.
One practice in Queensland was completed on May 31, another two in NSW were completed in June, and two more NSW practices are confirmed for settlement in July.
The group currently holds 42 practices, making it the second largest of its kind in Australia behind Greencross (ASX: GXL).
VetPartners acquired more practices between March and July than Greencross acquired in the 2015/16 financial year.
The company is in partnership with National Veterinary Associates (NVA), a 300-plus practice group in North America, which VetPartners CEO Michael Quirk says has an 'unnervingly similar philosophy' to his own about how veterinary services should operate.
Quirk says a big point of difference is the succession plan that VetPartners offers its vets.
"The multiples we're offering are much higher," he told Business News Australia in May.
"We provide a planned retirement with a degree of certainty and often at a price higher than that offered by our competition.
"[Our multiples] encourage vets to look more closely and think - well, I wasn't planning to retire, but that's good money and I can exit some of my business now and plan retirement over the next 10 years. They can drop their work hours and not worry as much.
"Most of these vendors have a two-year earn-out period where they get the last 20 per cent of their value over this period. We think it's a fairly easy target."
"Our target is that at the end of those two years, when the vets have the option to leave, they don't want to because it's just too good. For NVA in the US, 85 per cent of their vets are still working after 12 years. That outcome is the difference between what we're striving for and what the others are.
VetPartners was established in January and incorporated Sydney's VetFriends and North Shore groups, Adelaide's Vets4Pets and other practices that joined the Australian Veterinary Owners League.
Quirk told Business News Australia earlier this year that the 'intensity of consolidation is right now' in veterinary services.
"It's important for us who are consolidating to win the acquisition battle," he says.
"By Christmas I imagine the main groups will be a little more obvious and the acquisition activity will slow down."
Read more about VetPartners, the new veterinary services group on the block.
Get our daily business news
Sign up to our free email news updates.
)
)
)
)
)
