Corporate Greed (Part 10): The reckoning (#473)

Across nine essays we’ve followed a pattern that has become impossible to ignore:

How a profession built on compassion has been quietly re-engineered into a financial product.

From the Marvel analogy in Part 1 - where the Juggernaut of corporate greed gained its strength from the gem of private equity - to the global tour that took us through Australia, Europe, North America, and the emerging markets of Asia, Africa, and South America, each chapter has mapped a different corner of the same story.

The Origin Story - The Crimson Gem of Cyttorak

Corporate Greed (Part 1): A Marvel(lous) analogy for 2025. https://www.ricklecouteur.com/post/corporate-greed-part-1-a-marvel-lous-analogy-for-2025-448

Corporate greed doesn’t appear out of nowhere; it begins when a profession accepts capital that demands unnatural returns.

Once veterinary medicine aligned itself with leveraged buyouts and rapid multiple expansion, it became less a calling and more a vehicle for extraction.

Momentum, armor, and opacity became its defining traits.

Transparency remained the one thing that could still pierce its mind.

The Private Equity Playbook

Corporate Greed (Part 2): What Might Scott Galloway say? https://www.ricklecouteur.com/post/corporate-greed-part-2-what-might-scott-galloway-say-450

Scott Galloway’s lens reminded us that what looks like care to clients looks like recurring, price-inelastic revenue to investors.

The math is brutally simple:

Every subsequent chapter has tested that formula in real markets, and found it sadly accurate.

Tipping Points and Externalities

Corporate Greed (Part 3): Can Vet Med Still Change Course? https://www.ricklecouteur.com/post/corporate-greed-part-3-can-vet-med-still-change-course-452

Part 3 framed corporate veterinary medicine through the vocabulary of climate science - tipping points, externalities, and lock-in.

Once debt, data systems, and non-compete clauses are in place, the sector develops its own inertia.

The moral pollution - burnout, compassion fatigue, loss of trust - doesn’t appear on any balance sheet, yet it is the true cost of financial engineering.

Australia, Europe, and North America: Different Maps, Same Contours

Corporate Greed (Part 4): The $45 billion vet med buyout. https://www.ricklecouteur.com/post/corporate-greed-part-4-the-45-billion-vet-med-buyout-467

Corporate Greed (Part 5): The takeover of vet med in Australia. https://www.ricklecouteur.com/post/corporate-greed-part-5-the-takeover-of-vet-med-in-australia-468

Corporate Greed (Part 6): Two sides to the story. https://www.ricklecouteur.com/post/corporate-greed-part-6-two-sides-to-the-story-469

Corporate Greed (Part 7): The takeover of vet med in Europe. https://www.ricklecouteur.com/post/corporate-greed-part-7-the-takeover-of-vet-med-in-europe-470

Corporate Greed (Part 8): When Wall Street moves into the exam room. https://www.ricklecouteur.com/post/corporate-greed-part-8-when-wall-street-moves-into-the-exam-room-471

By Parts 4 through 8, the geography changed but the plot did not.

• Australia

• Greencross, VetPartners, Vets Central, Apiam, CVS - each iteration a leveraged platform promising efficiency and delivering concentration.

• Europe

• IVC Evidensia, AniCura, VetPartners, Medivet - funded by EQT, BC Partners, CVC, Mars and Nestlé Purina -transforming care into a €12-billion defensive cash-flow asset.

• North America

• Mars, JAB, KKR, Oak Hill, TSG, Silver Lake - where Wall Street now owns the exam room and regulators struggle to keep pace .

Every region shows the same three consequences:

Rising prices, eroded clinical autonomy, and vanishing local ownership.

The Emerging Wave

Corporate Greed (Part 9): Asia, Africa & South America. https://www.ricklecouteur.com/post/corporate-greed-part-9-asia-africa-south-america-472

Part 9 revealed that the next battlegrounds are Asia, Africa, and South America - where the playbook is already open: Tencent, KKR, L Catterton, Mars, and retail conglomerates investing in clinics before regulators have even defined the rules..

These markets still have time to learn from Europe’s mistakes, but the warning lights are already flashing.

Recurring Themes

Across continents, four motifs recur:

• Opacity vs Transparency

• The helmet and the telepath. Without ownership disclosure, ethical oversight is impossible.

• Debt and Pressure

• Leverage converts healers into revenue generators.

• Erosion of Trust

• When profit displaces purpose, the bond between vet and client fractures.

• Moral Distress and Burnout

• The emotional pollution that every efficiency gain leaves behind.

What Can Still Be Saved

Each essay offered glimpses of resistance:

Radical transparency, fair contracts, employee ownership, co-ops, and public accountability.

No single reform will stop the juggernaut, but together they can slow it, open it, and redirect it - a coalition of regulators, professionals, journalists, and informed pet owners.

The Moral Equation

If we strip the series to its essence, the moral algebra is simple:

Reduce the denominator through transparency, accountability, and fair governance and the numerator regains power.

The Next Tipping Point

There are still positive tipping points ahead:

• When disclosure becomes expectation.

• When clinicians refuse exploitative non-competes.

• When clients reward integrity over branding.

The juggernaut slows not when it crashes, but when those inside its armor start listening again.

Epilogue: The Man Inside the Armor

Cain Marko, the Juggernaut, was never pure villainy. The man inside was once good.

So too in corporate vet med.

Within the armor are people who love animals and hate what the system is becoming.

If they can take off the helmet, then perhaps the profession can find its way back to what first called us here:

Care without calculation.

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