Paris: The Clinic on the Corner (#703)
We were sitting outside La Maison, having dinner in the little square in the 17th arrondissement of Paris.
It was one of those wonderfully ordinary Paris evenings. Tables spilled onto the pavement. People talked over one another. Glasses clinked. Waiters threaded their way between chairs carrying plates and bottles of wine. Dogs lay under tables. People came and went.
The square had that particular Parisian quality of being busy without seeming hurried.
And directly across from where we were sitting, I noticed a veterinary hospital.
Clinique Vétérinaire Ouest My Vet.
Of course I noticed it.
I have spent most of my professional life in veterinary medicine. Put me almost anywhere in the world and sooner or later I will notice the veterinary clinic.
From the outside, there was nothing particularly remarkable about this one. It looked exactly as I would expect a neighborhood veterinary practice in Paris to look: modest, professional, local.
I wondered who the veterinarians were.
So, between dinner and another glass of wine, I did what curiosity increasingly allows us to do. I picked up my phone and did a little research.
The clinic had its own name. Its own veterinarians. Its own identity. Its website described a modern veterinary clinic with an ambiance de village - a village atmosphere - nestled in Place Saint-Ferdinand.
How appropriate. I was sitting in that very village.
But then I discovered something I could not see from my table at La Maison.
The veterinary clinic across the square was part of Mon Véto.
And suddenly my casual curiosity became considerably more interesting. Because nothing I could see from my restaurant table told me that.
That led me to a much bigger question:
When animal owners walk through the door of their neighborhood veterinary clinic, do they actually know who owns it?
The Name Above the Door
Ouest My Vet retains its familiar name. But corporate records tell a different story about its ownership.
A Mon Véto corporate organizational chart dated November 1, 2024 lists Ouest My Vet among entities connected 100 percent to Mon Véto.
Mon Véto's own website also has a page devoted to the clinic and describes it as:
Notre clinique vétérinaire, Mon Véto, située à Paris …
Our veterinary clinic, Mon Véto, located in Paris ...
So the corporate relationship is not secret. It can be found.
But there is an important difference between information that can be found and information that is clearly disclosed to the customer.
That distinction matters.
The person walking across Place Saint-Ferdinand with a sick dog may see Ouest My Vet. They see the names and faces of the veterinarians. They experience what looks and feels like a local veterinary practice.
Do they know that there is a corporate organization behind it? Perhaps they do. Perhaps they don't.
I certainly didn't, sitting across the square looking at it.
And Who Owns Mon Véto?
That was my next question.
Mon Véto was founded in 2010 by veterinarians David Beciani and Nicolas Girard. The company describes itself as a veterinarian-founded national network and emphasizes the individuality and history of its member clinics.
That is important.
This is not quite the familiar story of an outside investment company simply buying veterinary hospitals.
But keep following the ownership trail and things become more complicated.
In 2023, investment firm Ardian announced a €100 million investment in Mon Véto intended to accelerate the group's growth.
At the time, Mon Véto already operated 231 clinics, employed approximately 550 veterinarians and generated more than €180 million in annual revenue. It had completed 168 acquisitions in five years.
There was another remarkable number.
Barings, which was providing debt financing to Mon Véto, was expected to increase its financing in several tranches to as much as €400 million.
To be fair, Mon Véto emphasized that practicing veterinarians remained substantially in the majority following Ardian's investment.
So it would be an oversimplification to describe the clinic across from my dinner table simply as a private-equity-owned veterinary hospital.
But it would also seem an oversimplification to regard it as just another independently owned neighborhood veterinary practice.
The truth is more complicated.
And increasingly, that complexity is hidden behind familiar names above veterinary clinic doors.
The Invisible Consolidation of Veterinary Medicine
This may be one of the most interesting features of veterinary consolidation.
Corporate ownership does not necessarily arrive with a truck carrying a new sign.
The old sign can stay.
The veterinarians can stay.
The nurses and receptionists can stay.
The telephone number can stay.
The website may retain its familiar appearance.
The practice may continue to feel exactly as it did before.
What changes is the ownership behind it.
Indeed, Mon Véto explicitly emphasizes preserving the “ADN et son histoire” - the DNA and history - of individual clinics.
There are perfectly reasonable reasons for doing this.
Veterinary medicine is built around relationships. Clients know their veterinarian, not the shareholders behind the veterinarian. A practice name may have accumulated years, even decades, of community trust.
But retaining that identity creates an interesting unintended consequence.
The clinic may continue to look independent long after its ownership has ceased to be independent.
Does Ownership Matter?
Some will reasonably ask:
So what?
If my veterinarian is competent, compassionate and professionally independent, why should I care who owns the practice?
It is a fair question.
Corporate ownership is not synonymous with bad veterinary medicine.
Large organizations can provide sophisticated equipment, purchasing power, administrative support, continuing education, improved career structures and access to capital that an individual practitioner may struggle to provide.
Those are real advantages.
But ownership still matters.
Ownership determines where profits ultimately go.
Ownership may influence investment decisions, staffing levels, purchasing arrangements, pricing structures, performance measurements, growth targets and expectations placed upon individual veterinarians.
And once substantial investment capital enters the equation, another participant has entered the relationship:
The investor.
Investors invest for a reason.
They expect a return.
That does not mean the veterinarian standing in the examination room has suddenly stopped putting the animal first.
But it does mean that the economic structure surrounding that veterinarian has changed.
Shouldn't the animal owner know that?
Disclosure Is Not an Accusation
This is where we need to be careful.
I have found no evidence that Mon Véto is deliberately concealing its relationship with Ouest My Vet.
Indeed, the clinic appears on Mon Véto's own website, and corporate documents identify the relationship.
So I would not claim that ownership is deliberately being hidden from clients without considerably more evidence.
But my experience that evening raises a subtler question:
How obvious should ownership be?
Should an animal owner need to search company records? Should they have to follow links and examine corporate organizational charts? Should they need to recognize the name of an investment company? Or should there simply be a small statement somewhere obvious:
Clinique Vétérinaire Ouest My Vet is part of Groupe Mon Véto.
Just transparency.
Back at La Maison
By then dinner had arrived. Across the square, the veterinary clinic was still there. Nothing about it had changed. Same building. Same sign. Same neighborhood. Same veterinarians.
And almost certainly the same dedication to the animals brought through its doors.
What had changed was my understanding of what I was looking at.
I had begun the evening looking at what appeared to be a neighborhood veterinary practice.
A few minutes of research revealed a national veterinary group, hundreds of clinics, hundreds of veterinarians, hundreds of millions of euros in revenue, a €100 million investment and a much larger financial structure extending far beyond this pleasant little Parisian square.
And that is precisely why this matters.
The question is not whether corporate veterinary medicine is good or bad.
That is a much larger discussion.
The simpler question comes first:
Does the client have a right to know?
Veterinary medicine depends profoundly upon trust. Animal owners trust us with patients who cannot speak, cannot consent and cannot question the recommendations being made on their behalf.
Transparency strengthens that trust.
If corporate ownership has no influence on clinical decision-making, there should be little reason not to disclose it prominently.
And if corporate ownership does influence clinical decision-making, the argument for disclosure becomes stronger still.
Perhaps that is what struck me most that evening at La Maison.
I could see the veterinary clinic perfectly clearly from my table.
What I couldn't see was who owned it.
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