The boss of CVS has revealed how the company has been supporting the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) ongoing market investigation of the small animal veterinary sector.

Chief executive Richard Fairman was speaking following the release of CVS’ year-end results last week, which showed a revenue increase of nearly 10% to more than £647 million during the past 12 months.

This was despite a number of challenges during that period, including a cyberattack and the subsequent work to migrate the bulk of its UK practices to a cloud-based PMS, as well as the impact on the business of the ongoing CMA investigation.

Proactive engagement

Mr Fairman said: “We have proactively tried to engage with the CMA throughout its process and that has continued following the announcement of the market investigation in May.

“Myself, Paul [Higgs] and Robin [Alfonso], along with other members of our senior team, asked for a teaching session with the CMA, and we met the panel and helped them better understand the sector, better understand CVS and what we are trying to achieve. We also wanted to help them understand some of the challenges we will face in our sector.”

Mr Fairman also revealed that the CMA had already conducted two site visits at CVS practices – a first opinion site and also a small referral hospital.

‘Great opportunity’

Mr Fairman added: “That was a great opportunity for our teams to showcase what they do and also to talk them through some of the challenges as well.

“We have also talked about the requirements for new legislation and if the CMA can help influence a new Veterinary Surgeons Act then I think that could be beneficial.”

In line with the other corporate groups, CVS only made limited UK practice acquisitions last year with £12.7 million spent on five practices as the company continues to focus its buying activity on the Australian market, where 22 practices were acquired for a total of £82.5 million.

Further growth

While UK acquisitions have tailed off, Mr Fairman pointed to the multimillion-pound investments made across CVS’ UK estate, as well as the continued development of initiatives such as its clinical governance framework and the new graduate programme, which attracted 170 new graduates last year.

He said: “I am privileged to lead a team of outstanding colleagues who care passionately about our clients and their animals under our care.

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank them all for their commitment and dedication, and I look forward to delivering further growth in 2025 and beyond.”