[Veterinary Consolidator] Shows the Money

Note: This was originally posted to my invite-only Substack: Veterinary Practice Owners Confidential. Certain redactions have been made

[Consolidator], is acquiring hospitals aggressively as we start 2026. They’ve got the taps open and are knocking on doors with offers to buy multi-DVM practices all across the country. This acquisition “push” is part of preparing a []. However, we’ve been down that road before with both [ ] and [ ], neither of which has been able get an [ ] done despite stating their intentions to do so years ago.

Many DVM Owners will accept those offers, putting value the owners spent a career creating directly into the pocket of [pe firm] and which owns [consolidator]. If you didn’t know, the founder of [pe firm] is already a billionaire. I am sure that he doesn’t need any more money and definitely not the money of hard-working small business owners.

A parable: I have an 18 month old boy, who wants to touch and hold everything. Oftentimes he will move towards something and look at me before he grabs it. He does this because he knows whatever he is reaching for might be something I don’t want him to grab. In some cases, when he looks to me, I will say “Don’t do it! Don’t do it.” which he understands, of course. Inevitably, he will then attempt to pick up the object (unless I’ve already grabbed it away because it is dangerous).

If you have an offer from [ ] in front of you that you have negotiated directly with [ ] without the help of a high quality intermediary, and are tempted to accept it, this is me saying “Don’t do it! Don’t do it”. While it may seem like a good idea to accept an offer for your practice outside of a comprehensive price discovery process designed and administered by a professional, here’s why accepting such an offer will almost always result in a worse outcome for a business owner.

1. There are many corporate buyers out there. There is one corporate buyer who will find your practice to be more strategic in their portfolio than any other. Are you sure that [ ] is that party? If you are not sure, then they probably are not. Running a competitive, tight sales process is the only way to be sure.

We had a client who had a few offers in hand from a few consolidators before they hired us. The best offer valued the practice at ~[ ] times ([ ]times the $ value) the valuation of the lowest offer. We prepared for, and executed a tight price discovery process, resulting in a new round of offers. In this new round of offers, the best offer now provided for more than [ ] times the original best offer in cash at close. The [other consideration] associated with this new offer, which paid out, brought the total consideration earned to something well beyond [ ]x what that original “high” offer was.  This is an extreme illustration of the fact that a) every buyer will have a different valuation for your practice; and b) actually getting an offer demonstrating that valuation is not as easy as may be presumed.

2. If corporate buyers are reaching out with offers to buy your practice, there must some reason why. Is it because they like cold-calling, or maybe they just want to chat? Nope. They know that if they can convince you to sell before you can shop your practice in the right way to find that most strategic buyer for you, they will very likely be able to get your practice for less than what they might otherwise be willing to pay. This is a deliberate strategy, and commonly deployed by the large Companies.

One consolidator told us they have a team of 10+ entry-level employees who spend each day calling practices and owners trying to get them to take a meeting with someone in their business development group. These buyers know that if their people can develop a relationship with a potential seller (exactly what they are hired to do), the potential seller may become convinced that they should sell their practice to this buyer, and only this buyer when they decide it is time to sell. Through this approach, the buyers set up an inside track to purchase the practice for less than they might otherwise be willing to pay, and less than what someone else might be willing to pay to acquire it. Every time [consolidator] purchases a practice for less than it is worth, they put money directly into [pe firm’s] pocket. Fuel up the private jet!

3. Outside of the valuation and consideration in an offer, there are a million ways to shift risk from the buyer to the seller. Everything in this camp happens in the negotiation of the various deal docs – Asset purchase agreement, employment agreement, lease etc. The seller doesn’t get to see what is in the deal docs until they’ve hired an attorney and begun to rack up legal fees. Because the seller is negotiating one-off with one buyer, the seller has no real leverage to push back on one-sided terms other than walking from the deal. Once the seller has begun to pay an attorney, walking away will be costly since attorney’s fees are billed per unit of work done regardless of outcome. In addition to now having to pay attorney’s fees without receiving any proceeds from a deal, the seller is back to square one. How many DVM owners, instead, just held their noses and accepted one-sided deals terms rather than going back to square one now hung with a five-figure legal bill? Unfortunately, many.

I could go on, but there doesn’t seem to be much point. I estimate that 60% of multi-DVM practices sold are sold without financial intermediary representation of any kind. Not a good broker, not a bad broker – no broker.   If you are tempted to go this route, please don’t do it.