Revealed, the vet ‘fat cats’ making millions ... from your fat cats
As watchdog probes claims of overcharging...
VETERINARY fat cats are pocketing more than £500,000 a year and living in sprawling mansions as pet owners across the country struggle to pay their bills, an investigation has found.
Some of Britain’s veterinary giants are turning over hundreds of millions of pounds a year and this week a watchdog announced a probe into whether consumers are being overcharged for animal care.
The boss of VetPartners, one of the country’s largest conglomerates which has hundreds of branches, lives in a £ 2.2 million nine- bedroom country estate in York which boasts a swimming pool, gated entrance, tennis courts, and a paddock for horses.
VetPartners, which is rumoured to be worth in excess of £3 billion, was set up
‘Concerns with the market’
in 2015 by chief executive Jo Malone, a trained vet, with the backing of a private equity firm.
It now has more than 11,000 employees, recorded £574 million in revenue in 2022 – up from £430 million the previous year – and has expanded to Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, and Germany.
Despite her impressive fortune, Mrs Malone, who shares her name with the perfume giant, once insisted in an interview that there’s ‘not one bone in my body that’s financially motivated’.
Pets at Home chief executive Lyssa McGowan has also overseen a successful couple of years for the company’s 448 Vets4Pets practices.
Pets at Home – which is mainly made up of retail stores – turned over £1.4 billion last year, up 6.6 per cent, while its vet practices each made an average of £1.1 million a year, according to the company’s recent accounts. Mrs McGowan joined the company in 2022 on a £580,000 salary and a maximum annual bonus worth 170 per cent of her salary, which would amount to nearly £1 million.
VetPartners and Pets at Home were both cited by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) this week as it announced an investigation into the vet industry. The watchdog revealed that since 2013, 1,500 of the 5,000 veterinarian practices in the UK have been acquired by six large companies – Pets at Home, VetPartners, CVS, Linnaeus, Medivet, and IVC.
CVS reported revenue of £608 million in 2023, up 9.8 per cent, while IVC – which is owned by Swedish private equity group EQT – made nearly £1 billion in revenue in 2022.
Medivet, which is backed by Luxembourg private equity CVC Capital, turned over £345 million in 2023, up from £290 million the previous year. Linnaeus brought in £352 million in 2022, up from £309 million the previous year, accounts show. The CMA expressed concern that the consolidation of independent vets across high streets could be reducing competition and pushing up prices.
Chief executive Sarah Cardell said: ‘ The unprecedented response we received from the public and veterinary professionals shows the strength of feeling on this issue is high and why we were right to look into this.
‘We have heard concerns from those working in the sector about the pressures they face, including acute staff shortages, and the impact this has on individual prowere fessionals. But our review has identified multiple concerns with the market that we think should be investigated further.
‘These include pet owners finding it difficult to access basic information like price lists and prescription costs – and potentially overpaying for medicines.
‘We are also concerned about weak competition in some areas, driven in part by sector consolidation, and the incentives for large corporate groups to act in ways which may reduce competition and choice.’
VetPartners declined to comment, while a spokesman for Pets at Home said: ‘Lyssa McGowan’s... salary and bonus are assessed against a number of targets and regularly benchmarked against her FTSE250 peers.’
‘Weak competition in some areas’