LONDON: Pets at Home Group Plc, the UK’s leading pet care business, announced the acquisition of The Vet Connection (TVC), the UK’s largest independent veterinary telehealth provider, for cash consideration of £15 million.
The consideration is being financed using Pets at Home’s existing cash reserves.
Founded in 2002, TVC has an established and successful track record of providing on demand, high quality, round-the-clock veterinary telehealth advice, triage and ancillary services to a wide range of customers and their pets.
Using their experienced in-house veterinary team, TVC already conducts approximately 90,000 remote consultations each year, underpinned by extensive proprietary clinical protocols, a wide range of communication channels and a robust and scalable infrastructure. In the year to April 2020, TVC achieved adjusted Ebitda of £0.7m.
Peter Pritchard, Group Chief Executive Officer, commented: “The acquisition of TVC marks an important next step in the development of our digital capabilities providing trusted advice and even more convenient pet care services. We have followed their business for a number of years and know Jamie Moodie, Nick Irvine, Rob Mitchell and the TVC team well, and look forward to working with their current partners and supporting the continued development of their service.
We recognise TVC’s exceptional telehealth capabilities and excellent service levels, as well as the opportunities arising from the scalability of their clinical protocols and proprietary telehealth platform, and look forward to incorporating their capabilities into our existing customer offer – across product, services and subscriptions – to enhance the overall customer experience, and help drive customer acquisition, retention and lifetime value.
TVC is a “win-win” solution for our customers, colleagues and JVPs, providing 24/7 access to trusted advice from the comfort of home with increased flexibility around veterinary work-life balance.”
Pets at Home Group Plc is the UK’s leading pet care business. Pet products are available online or from 451 stores, many of which also have vet practices and grooming salons. Pets at Home also operates a UK leading small animal veterinary business, with 440 First Opinion practices located both in stores and in standalone locations, as well as five Specialist Referral centres.