BusinessCantillon

Vets cash in amid takeover wave

Big players looking to consolidate pet-care market

IVC Evidensia now has 36 practices operating from 55 sites across Ireland.

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Cantillon
Thu Jun 27 2024 - 06:00

The quiet gold rush in Ireland’s veterinary practice market has continued in 2024 with a pair of purchases by IVC Evidensia, one of the big international players in the industry.

In June, IVC Evidensia bought Tullamore Pet Hospital, a practice based in Tullamore, Co Offaly, and just this month the CCPC, the State’s competition watchdog, was notified that it was buying the Well Pet Hospital in Sligo.

There are, according to most estimates, about 750 veterinary practices in Ireland, and the market is consolidating fast, driven not just by IVC Evidensia, but other big groups such as CVS, Linnaeus, Vet Partners, as well as an Irish group called Highfield Veterinary.

IVC Evidensia now has 36 practices operating from 55 sites across Ireland, and it seems keen for more. On its website, the company has a page offering advice to vets who might be looking to sell their practice, reassuring them that they can “get in touch ... for a confidential discussion” with its own team of vets, who will understand that “this is a sensitive time for you and your business and treat the whole process with the utmost confidentiality and respect”.

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When asked by Cantillon about their plans for the Irish market, an IVC Evidensia spokesman said that “in a fast-evolving and modernising veterinary profession, IVC Evidensia is seeing continued demand among Irish veterinarians to be part of a larger group” — in short, plenty are looking to sell out.

There appears to be plenty of data to back that up. Research from HLB Ireland, last year found that “just under one-third (30 per cent) of veterinary practice owners surveyed are considering selling their practice in the next 12 months”, citing a desire for more work-life balance.

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Many more have already decided to sell up, with the HLB research noting that there has been a particular acceleration in acquisitions since 2019.

The HLB report also notes that in the UK — where the consolidation of veterinary practices is a good deal more advanced than in Ireland, with the proportion of independent practices down to 45 per cent in 2021 from 89 per cent in 2013 — more than three million households got a new pet during the pandemic. No such figures appear to be available for Ireland, but it seems reasonable to assume there was a similar pattern here.

All of this makes it a particularly good time for big corporations to be sweeping in to buy small family veterinary practices — a trend that will only accelerate in the coming months and years.

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