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An approach from a corporate group

Six groups now own more than 60% of UK practices, so an unsolicited email is not unusual and not a compliment. What matters is what you can establish about your own numbers before you reply to it.

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Owned by six groups: Over 60%Of UK practices, wholly or partly, against 10% in 2013
The largest: IVCOver 900 first opinion practices. The next largest owner outside the six has 38
BADR from 6 April 2026: 18%Within six points of the 24% main higher rate of capital gains tax
Valuation multiples on this site: NoneNo primary source publishes any

Six groups, and they are not interchangeable

The consolidation is verified and it is fast. More than 60% of UK veterinary practices are now owned in whole or in part by six large veterinary groups, against just 10% in 2013 — growth the CMA attributes mainly to a significant number of acquisitions over a relatively short period. The six are CVS, IVC Evidensia, Linnaeus, Medivet, Pets at Home and VetPartners.

The spread between them is enormous, and so is the difference in what selling to each one means.

Group	Ownership	Notes from the CMA's final report
IVC Evidensia	Private equity	The largest, with over 900 first opinion practices in the UK. Owns a dedicated out-of-hours business and referral-only centres
CVS	Listed company	Owns a dedicated out-of-hours business and referral-only centres
VetPartners	Private equity	Owns referral-only centres. Grew mainly by acquisition
Medivet	Private equity	UK-wide branding across all or most practices, and a partnership model for a number of them
Pets at Home	Listed company	UK-wide branding, and a joint-venture structure with most practices co-owned by local vets. The only one of the six that expanded mainly by opening new practices rather than buying them
Linnaeus	Owned by Mars Petcare	The smallest of the six, with around 180 first opinion practices. Owns referral-only centres

Two of those models are not clean exits. Pets at Home co-owns most of its practices with local vets through joint ventures, and Medivet runs a partnership model for a number of its practices. If the approach on your desk is from either, the first question is not what the number is — it is how much of the practice you will still own, and on what terms, the morning afterwards.

Context worth having on the other side of the table: between January 2023 and July 2024, average prices at practices owned by Medivet, IVC, CVS, VetPartners and Linnaeus were together 18.3% higher than at independent practices for consultations and treatments. Net satisfaction on value for money was 26% for large-group customers against 47% at independents. And where pet owners have a view on ownership, more than two thirds prefer an independent practice.

What changes after the sale

Draft Article 5 of the Order requires ownership information on signage, at the premises, on websites and in communications, within six months of the Order for large and small businesses alike. That is a change to the shop window, and it lands on whoever owns the practice at the time. The CMA found that only a minority of confirmed large-group customers knew their practice was part of a group — 22% at IVC, 33% at CVS and 36% at another, with 23% unsure. Whatever the price, that disclosure is part of what the buyer is taking on.

Regulatory reality

What the CMA decided not to do, and what it is still watching

It is worth being clear that the market investigation did not set out to unwind the roll-up, and did not. The final report expressly declined to pursue divestments of businesses or parts of businesses, declined to cap the level of practice ownership by large groups, declined any general price control beyond the written prescription fee, declined a profit cap on the basis that it would be disproportionate, and declined forced divestment of online pharmacies, referral centres, crematoria or laboratories.

Merger control is where the live risk sits, and it is narrower and stranger than most sellers expect. UK merger notification is voluntary. There is no mandatory pre-notification obligation and the CMA's final report created no new filing duty. The statutory thresholds, as amended by the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 with effect from 1 January 2025, are a target UK turnover above £100 million, or creation or enhancement of a 25% share of supply in the UK or a substantial part of it, with a £10 million UK turnover floor where the share-of-supply route is relied on. There is also an acquirer-focused threshold: a 33% share of supply, UK turnover of £350 million or more, and a UK nexus condition.

Final report, para 136

“In line with its current practice, the CMA will continue actively monitoring merger activity in the veterinary sector for any relevant acquisitions that may harm competition and will take account of the analysis undertaken in this market investigation regarding competitive dynamics as appropriate.” A footnote adds that in assessing future mergers the CMA may use share of full-time-equivalent vets in specific local areas, as it did in previous veterinary merger cases.

So the honest position is this: no new obligation exists, and a sale in a concentrated local area still carries call-in risk, because the CMA has said in terms that it is watching this sector and has told you the measure it may use. That is a diligence question about your own catchment rather than a reason not to sell.

One more piece of context on the regulatory horizon. The CMA has recommended statutory regulation of veterinary businesses, and Defra's consultation on reforming the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966 — which ran to 25 March 2026 and drew 6,219 responses — proposes an operating licence for businesses with loss-of-licence enforcement. The response has not been published and nothing is in force. It is a proposal, and a buyer's view of it is a negotiating position rather than a fact.

The tax on the proceeds

18%, and why the timing argument has gone quiet

Disposal date	BADR rate
On or before 5 April 2025	10%
6 April 2025 to 5 April 2026	14%
From 6 April 2026	18%

Business Asset Disposal Relief still matters. What has changed is how much it is worth contorting a plan around. At 18% it sits within six points of the 24% main higher rate of capital gains tax — so the difference between qualifying and not qualifying is real but no longer transformational, and the case for accelerating or delaying a sale purely to land on a particular relief rate has largely gone. Every condition is tested over at least two years before the disposal, so structure decided today is what determines the answer.

Sole trader or partner: you are one, and you have owned the business for at least two years.
Shareholder: you are an employee or office holder of the company, and the company's main activities are trading rather than non-trading activities like investment.
The personal company test for non-EMI shares: at least 5% of shares and 5% of voting rights, plus entitlement to 5% of either profits and assets on a winding up or of the proceeds on a disposal.

We do not publish a BADR lifetime limit on this site, because the gov.uk page behind our research did not state one — which matters far more on a second disposal than a first, and is a figure to establish for your own position rather than take from a web page. Partners and buy-ins covers the same conditions from the entry side.

The buyer's problem, which becomes your price

Relief for a corporate buyer on purchased goodwill and other relevant assets acquired on or after 1 April 2019 is a fixed 6.5% a year — but only where the acquisition includes qualifying intellectual property, and then capped at the lower of the asset cost or six times the cost of the qualifying IP. No qualifying IP means no relief. There is also no relief where there is no accompanying business acquisition, or where the asset comes from a related party who generated it internally.

An illustrative example. A buyer pays £600,000 for the goodwill of a practice with no registered intellectual property: relief nil. Add £20,000 of qualifying IP and the relievable amount is capped at six times that — £120,000 — giving £7,800 a year at 6.5%. On a £600,000 payment, that is relief on one fifth of it. Illustrative figures, and the shape is the point: a typical independent practice's value sits in goodwill and client relationships with little or no registered IP, so the buyer often gets no corporation tax relief at all on the goodwill it pays for.

That is a verifiable driver of asset-versus-share structuring and of price. It is not a negotiating tactic, and it is the reason a buyer's preference on structure can be worth real money to you.

What we will and will not tell you

No multiples — and here is what there is instead

There is no primary source that publishes veterinary practice valuation multiples. Not EBITDA multiples, not price per full-time-equivalent vet, not a percentage of turnover. The CMA's final report is the deepest financial examination this sector has ever had — it had access to the records of all six large groups and a sample of independents — and it deliberately publishes no multiple. Any figure you have seen in trade press or broker material cannot be traced back to a primary source, so we will not repeat it as though it could.

What the CMA does publish, and what is genuinely useful when an approach arrives, is the profitability evidence.

CMA sample of 36 small independent veterinary firms	Figure
EBIT margin range, 2021–2023	−9% to +34%
Weighted average EBIT margin, 2021–2023	11%
By year	15% (2021), 12% (2022), 9% (2023)
Top sextile / bottom sextile	28% / 0%
Firms whose margin declined 2021→2023	24 of 36
Firms in the same sextile all three years	9 of 36
Average EBIT margin of the six large groups	14%
CMA pre-tax cost of capital	7.5%–10.5%, midpoint 9%

The final report also records that four of the six large groups — CVS, IVC, Pets at Home and VetPartners — made profits which materially exceeded the cost of capital over a sustained period, and that there is a wide distribution of performance among independent practices, with some making significantly higher margins than others. Group-specific return and economic profit figures are redacted in the published appendix, so nobody can reconstruct them and we will not try.

An illustrative example of the adjustment that actually moves a price. A practice turns over £1.2 million and reports £96,000 of EBIT, an 8% margin. The principal draws £30,000 less than a market salary for the clinical work they personally do. Normalise that, and EBIT is £66,000 — a 5.5% margin. Nothing about the practice changed; the reported figure was simply carrying part of the owner's remuneration in the profit line. A buyer will make that adjustment, and it is far better to have made it yourself first. For reference, 11% of £1.2 million is £132,000. Illustrative figures.

That is the work worth doing before you reply to an approach: normalise the earnings, know your margin, know how much of the goodwill sits with one clinician, and know your premises position. The value drivers tool scores exactly those inputs and returns priorities rather than a number, and the selling page covers getting the accounts sale-ready.

How this profession is actually regulated

The RCVS regulates vets. It does not regulate practices.

There is no ownership restriction

Non-vets have been able to own a UK veterinary practice since 1999, and the RCVS has no statutory power to regulate the businesses vets work in — only the individual veterinary surgeons and veterinary nurses on its registers. The Practice Standards Scheme is, in the RCVS's own words, a voluntary accreditation.

The CMA identified exactly this in its final report of 24 March 2026: that the system of regulation applies only to veterinary professionals and not to the businesses in which they work.

One registration is compulsory

If your practice supplies or stores medicines you must register the premises with the RCVS, which holds the Register of Veterinary Practice Premises on behalf of the VMD. The fee is per premises — a main site and two branches is three registrations — at £38 a year in England and Wales, VAT exempt, renewing on 1 April.

Defra's consultation on reforming the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966 closed on 25 March 2026 and proposes licensing veterinary businesses. The response has not been published and nothing is in force.

Sale FAQs

Questions owners ask when an approach arrives

Who are the six groups, and how big are they?

CVS, IVC Evidensia, Linnaeus, Medivet, Pets at Home and VetPartners. Between them they own more than 60% of UK veterinary practices in whole or in part, against just 10% in 2013 — expansion the CMA attributes mainly to a large number of acquisitions over a relatively short period. IVC is the largest with over 900 first opinion practices; Linnaeus is the smallest of the six with around 180. The next largest veterinary business in the country owns 38, and 76% of veterinary businesses have only one practice.

Does it matter which group is approaching me?

It changes what you are joining and sometimes whether you have actually exited. CVS and Pets at Home are listed companies. IVC, VetPartners and Medivet are private-equity owned. Linnaeus is owned by Mars Petcare. Only Medivet and Pets at Home use UK-wide branding across all or most of their practices. Pets at Home uses a joint-venture structure with most practices co-owned by local vets, and Medivet operates a partnership model for a number of its practices — so in those cases you may still be a co-owner afterwards.

Will the CMA have to approve the sale?

There is no filing obligation, because UK merger notification is voluntary and the CMA's final report created no new duty. But the report says in terms that the CMA will continue actively monitoring merger activity in the veterinary sector for acquisitions that may harm competition, and will take account of the analysis in the market investigation. A footnote adds that it may assess share of full-time-equivalent vets in specific local areas, as it did in earlier veterinary merger cases. So a sale in a concentrated local area carries call-in risk.

What tax will I pay on the proceeds?

Capital gains tax, with Business Asset Disposal Relief if you qualify. BADR was 10% for disposals on or before 5 April 2025, 14% from 6 April 2025 to 5 April 2026, and 18% for disposals from 6 April 2026. Every condition is tested over at least two years before the disposal. At 18%, BADR now sits within six points of the 24% main higher rate of capital gains tax, which materially reduces the incentive to time a sale around it. We do not publish a lifetime limit figure, because our source for the rates did not state one.

Why do buyers care so much about share versus asset purchase?

Largely because of goodwill relief. Corporation tax relief on purchased goodwill is a fixed 6.5% a year, available only where the acquisition includes qualifying intellectual property, and capped at six times the cost of that IP. A typical independent practice's value sits in goodwill and client relationships with little or no registered IP, so the buyer often gets no corporation tax relief at all on the goodwill it pays for. That is a real, verifiable driver of structuring and of price, rather than a negotiating position.

What is my practice worth as a multiple?

We will not give you one, and we would be suspicious of anybody who does. No primary source publishes veterinary practice valuation multiples — not EBITDA multiples, not price per full-time-equivalent vet, not a percentage of turnover. The CMA's final report, which had access to the financial records of all six large groups and a sample of independents, deliberately does not. What we will do is work through the evidence that is published: the profitability spread among independent practices, and the CMA's pre-tax cost of capital range of 7.5% to 10.5%, midpoint 9%.

Ready when you are

Work out what you have before you answer the email.

A free review: normalised earnings, your margin against the CMA's own sample, your BADR position on the conditions as they stand, and an honest account of what a buyer will adjust. No multiple, because there is no honest one to give.

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