For independent practice owners · UK · Germany · France · Italy

A good exit shouldn't cost you what made your practice worth building.

Vet Wealth Global buys independent veterinary practices across Europe — at a fair, fully evidenced price — and keeps them run the way you built them: clinical standards intact, your team looked after and animal welfare back at the centre of the job, not a line negotiated away after completion.

Owned and run by vets, lawyers and M&A specialists who've sat on both sides of the negotiating table — and who now sit on yours.
The Dilemma

You built something worth having. That's exactly the problem.

You didn't build this practice to flip it. You built it because you're good at the job, because your team trust you and because clients drive an extra twenty minutes for the vet who explains things properly instead of the one who's fastest through a consult.

Now you're thinking about what comes next — retirement, a new chapter, or simply relief from the workload — and the offers on the table come from groups who talk in multiples, not medicine. You've heard the stories: standards slipping after acquisition, good nurses leaving within the year, targets replacing clinical judgement. You don't want your name attached to that.

It isn't hypothetical, either. We hear it constantly from vets who've left corporate practice — burnt out by targets, thin rotas and a working environment nobody designed for people to actually stay in. The associates and nurses you'd want on your own team are, more often than not, the ones already looking for the door marked "independent."

But you've also put twenty years and a second mortgage into this business and there's nothing unprofessional about wanting a fair return for it. Wanting a good price and wanting to do right by your patients aren't opposing positions — they never were. That's exactly why we buy practices ourselves, rather than simply advise on a sale to whoever's writing the biggest cheque: so the price you're offered and the promises you're made come with the same signature.

What do you want your staff to inherit?
The question worth sitting with before any exit conversation — because when we buy your practice, your team doesn't inherit a stranger. They inherit continuity.
Why It Pays To Do It Properly

The market already agrees with you.

Buyers don't pay top multiples for buildings and client lists. They pay for retention, for clinical reputation, for a team that stays after the founder leaves. The data bears this out — practices that score well on team performance and clinical standard consistently command a materially higher exit multiple than those competing purely on throughput. It's exactly why we structure our own offers around those same drivers, not just the P&L on the day of completion.

13.5x
Top-quartile EBITDA multiple, 2026 — practices with 4+ vets and £750k+ EBITDA
Vet Wealth Global analysis
6.5x
Bottom-quartile EBITDA multiple, 2026 — the gap is nearly always culture and retention, not revenue
Christie & Co
94%
Client retention among top-quartile practices, versus a much wider spread lower down the market
VWG benchmark dataset
27%
Top-quartile EBITDA margin, versus a 17% sector median — quality and profitability move together
VWG benchmark dataset
EBITDA Multiple, 2026 — Where Your Practice Sits
6.5x
Bottom quartile
9.5x
Sector average
13.5x
Top quartile

Retention, culture and clinical standard aren't a "nice to have" on a valuation report. They are the multiple.

Across Europe

Wherever you practice, the clock is running at a different speed.

Consolidation doesn't arrive in every market at once. The UK is furthest along — corporate groups now own an estimated 56% of practices, leaving roughly 2,331 independents facing exit decisions without an intelligence platform built for them. Germany, France and Italy are earlier in the same cycle, which means owners there still hold more leverage — and more time to choose a buyer who'll actually keep faith with what they've built.

United Kingdom
UK
Corporate share (est.)56%
Multiple range, 20266.5x–13.5x
Furthest along in consolidation; independents now a minority of the market.
EBITDA Multiple Range · 2026
Germany
DE
Market size, 2026≈€5.1bn
Multiple range6x–10x
Europe's second-largest veterinary market; consolidation accelerating.
EBITDA Multiple Range · 2026
France
FR
Market size, 2026≈€4.4bn
Multiple range6x–9x
Mid-consolidation; a meaningful preparation window remains.
EBITDA Multiple Range · 2026
Italy
IT
Market size, 2026≈€2.8bn
Multiple range5x–8x
Fourth-largest market in Europe; still early-stage consolidation.
EBITDA Multiple Range · 2026

Figures are Vet Wealth Global market estimates compiled from Christie & Co, IBISWorld, Ackerman Group and national veterinary body data. They're provided for context, not as a valuation of any specific practice and are not financial or investment advice.

How We Work

How we buy — and what changes, and doesn't, afterwards.

Most buyers value what's easy to measure: revenue, EBITDA, footfall. We price practices — and run them afterwards — around what actually protects their worth and their standards, once you've left the room.

01
Fair-Value Benchmarking
We benchmark your practice against real sector data on revenue, margin, retention and clinical quality, so the price we offer is evidenced — not a lowball opening bid.
02
An Open-Book Offer
You see exactly how we've arrived at your valuation, using the same live market data we hold ourselves to across the practices we already own. No black box.
03
Standards, Written Into the Sale
Clinical standard, team retention and animal welfare commitments go into the sale agreement itself — not left to goodwill after completion.
04
Ongoing Stewardship
Once we own it, your practice keeps its name, its people and its way of working — with our clinical, legal and finance team supporting from inside the business, not extracting from a distance.
A Note From Our Clinical Director

I spent twenty-five years in practice before I ever thought about what happens to one after it's sold. I know what it's like to sit in the staff room at seven in the evening doing paperwork nobody sees and I know what it feels like to watch a practice you've poured yourself into get reduced to a line in a spreadsheet.

I'm not going to tell you that wanting a good price is somehow unbecoming of the profession. You've earned it — through risk, through debt, through years of being the person everyone calls when something goes wrong out of hours. Nobody hands that back for free and nobody should ask you to.

What I will say is this: the practices that hold their value best and hold onto what made them worth building in the first place, are the ones where the new owner treats clinical standard as seriously as the balance sheet. That's how we run every practice we buy — because animal welfare and good business were never actually in competition.

That's the deal we want to make with you: a fair price today and a practice that still looks like yours on the day after completion and every day after that.

KH
Dr Kay Hamblin, BVSc MRCVS
Director, Clinical Operations & Client Insight — Vet Wealth Global

And for the people already doing the work when we buy: retention comes before any sales target — and it shows in what we actually offer them.

Monthly 1:2:1s
Regular, unhurried time with an experienced vet who understands the job and has a budget to actually help — not a tick-box appraisal.
Clinical freedom
Decisions made on clinical judgement, for the animal in front of you — not against a target sheet.
CPD & certificate funding
Further qualifications and career planning funded properly, not squeezed from a training budget nobody can access.
Flexible working & career breaks
Rotas and part-time routes built around real life, with a genuine, supported route back in after time away.
Family & childcare support
On-site crèche where practicable and a childcare allowance where it isn't — so parenting and practising aren't a trade-off.
Health, wellbeing & finance
Private healthcare, gym and PT membership and independent financial advice on your own terms — because looking after burnout starts long before you're burnt out.
The Platform

See exactly how we'd value your practice.

Every practice we assess gets a live benchmarking and valuation dashboard — not a one-off report that's out of date within a quarter. Explore a sample below.

Sample Practice vs. Sector
A single-site small-animal practice, illustrative — shown against the UK sector median and top quartile.
Illustrative sample
Revenue£1.32m
EBITDA margin21%
Client retention88%
Team score71/100
Sample practice Sector median & top-quartile markers
Exit-Readiness Score
Financial health, team performance and clinical standard, weighted into a single score with a clear plan to close the gaps.
Illustrative sample
78
/ 100
Financial health82/100
Team performance71/100
Clinical standard79/100
UK EBITDA Multiple, 2016–2026
The post-pandemic peak has cooled but quality practices still command a wide premium over the average.
Sourced data
5.0x 7.5x 14.0x 11.0x 9.5x 2016 2020 2022 2025 2026
2021–22 peak: 14.0x
2026 average: 9.5x
2026 top-quartile: 13.5x
Source: Christie & Co, Ackerman Group, Vet Wealth Global analysis
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A veterinarian happily holding a small dog in a clinic
Good medicine, good business
The practices that keep their standards after the sale are the ones whose new owner never intended to change them.
Who's Behind This

Legal rigour and clinical credibility, in the same room.

JC
James Cronin
Founder & Director — Acquisitions & Legal
BSc · PGDL · LLM (Leic) · LLM Kings London (Current)
28 years advising vets on employment, commercial and corporate law — now leading the deals through which Vet Wealth Global buys and protects independent practices. Guest lecturer, University of Cambridge Judge Business School.
KH
Dr Kay Hamblin
Director, Clinical Operations & Client Insight
BVSc · MRCVS · MSc Business Psychology
25 years of hands-on clinical practice. Designed the clinical and welfare standards that every practice we acquire is run to, long after completion.
KB
Kim Whallen Blake
Legal Director — Litigation & Risk
LLM · Solicitor · Litigation & Advocacy Specialist
Manages regulatory risk and disputes across the group, so the welfare and standards commitments we make at acquisition hold up under pressure, not just on paper.
AM
Adam Mehenni
Finance & Strategy Director
BA · MBA · Finalist, Chartered Institute of Accountants
Builds the financial systems and reporting that fund fair acquisition prices and stand behind them, across multiple currencies and markets.
In Confidence

Three conversations. No pressure. Nothing shared without your say-so.

01
A confidential call
No forms, nothing shared with third parties. Just a conversation about your practice, your team and what a good outcome looks like to you.
02
A fair-value review
We show you exactly how we'd price your practice against real sector data — the same numbers, the same method, every time.
03
An offer, on your terms
If it's a fit, we make a written offer with clinical standard, team retention and animal welfare commitments built into the sale — not a verbal promise made to close the deal.
Every conversation is confidential and without obligation. If our offer isn't right for you, you walk away owing nothing — no fee, no commitment, no pressure.

Your practice took years to build. It deserves an owner who won't undo that.

Book a confidential conversation
Acquiring independent practices across the UK, Germany, France and Italy — and expanding across Europe.

Vet Wealth Global · Eight Legal, Cheltenham · hello@vetwealthglobal.com · 01242 570161