Who Owns Your Vet (11)? How to find out if your vet is a corporate asset or an independent entity? (#456)

When your dog is vomiting at 2 a.m. or your cat suddenly stops eating, you aren’t thinking about private equity, holding companies, or corporate structures. You’re thinking about trust.

You want a veterinarian who listens, explains, and puts your pet ahead of profit.

But behind the friendly faces at the front desk, the ownership of veterinary hospitals has changed dramatically.

In many countries, a growing share of clinics are now owned or funded by large corporations and private-equity groups. Yet most of those clinics still look like the same old local practice.

One study from CARE for Pets™ in Arizona found that fewer than 15% of non-branded corporate-owned clinics clearly disclosed the corporate owner on their own websites.

So how can a client find out

who owns their veterinary hospital?

This post is a practical, step-by-step guide.

1. Read the clinic’s website like a detective.

• Most of us skim the homepage and the Our Team page and stop there. If you go a little deeper, you can often find ownership clues.

• Check the footer and the About page:

• Scroll to the very bottom of the homepage and look at the tiny text in the footer. You might see:

• A full legal name (e.g. XYZ Veterinary Services Pty Ltd).

• A reference to a group brand (e.g. Part of the Greencross network, A VetPartners family clinic, An NVA hospital, etc.).

• Some consolidators do mention their brand here or on the About page, especially in the UK and US.

• If you see the name of a known corporate group (Greencross, VetPartners, National Veterinary Associates, Mars/VCA/Banfield, JAB/Compassion First, etc.), you’ve probably found your answer.

• Open the Privacy Policy

• The privacy policy is often written from the corporate perspective. Look for phrases like:

• VetPartners group members, Greencross Vets, NVA, Inc. and its affiliates.

• Your data may be shared within our group of companies.

• A different legal entity name than the clinic’s trading name.

• In many corporately owned hospitals, the only clear reference to the parent company is buried in this boilerplate.

  
  

2. Use public business registers.

• If you want to be more certain, public registries are your friend.

• Australia:

• Search the clinic name on ABN Lookup or ASIC.

• Note the legal entity (e.g. XYZ PTY LTD). If the entity itself contains the consolidator’s name (VetPartners, Greencross, VetsCentral, etc.), that’s a smoking gun.

• New Zealand:

• Use the Companies Office to look up the legal owner and any parent companies.

• US/Canada/UK and elsewhere:

• State corporation databases, Companies House (UK), and provincial registries can reveal whether your clinic is part of a larger corporate chain.

• A growing body of investigative work has shown how quickly corporate ownership has spread:

  
  

  • In some regions, half or more of specialty/emergency hospitals are now corporate or PE-owned.

    
    

3. Look for brand clusters in your area.

• Corporate groups often use a mix of:

• Branded chains.

• Clearly labelled (e.g. Banfield, VCA, Greencross Vets).

• Non-branded acquisitions.

• Clinics that keep their old names and local identity.

• In both cases, you’ll see patterns:

• Similar logo style, colors, or website templates across several clinics.

• Shared marketing slogans or taglines.

• Multiple clinics cross-referencing each other as sister hospitals or within our family.

• If three clinics in different suburbs all have nearly identical websites, and mention the same corporate name in the footer, there’s likely one owner behind them.

  
  

4. Check job ads and careers pages.

• Sometimes the fastest way to see who owns a clinic is to search for jobs, not for pets.

• Try this:

• Google your clinic’s name plus veterinarian job or vet nurse job.

• Look at the ads on Indeed, LinkedIn, or the clinic’s own careers page.

• You may find something like:

• XYZ  Veterinary Hospital, part of the VetPartners group, is seeking an experienced veterinarian, even though the clinic’s public-facing homepage never uses the word VetPartners.

• In the US, similar patterns show up with NVA, VetCor, Pathway/Thrive, etc.

• Recruitment ads are written for vets, not clients, so they’re often much more candid about corporate ownership.

  
  

5. Use independent ownership-lookup tools.

• In some regions, consumer advocates and journalists have built tools to help you look up who owns which hospitals:

• VERIFIED™ (CARE for Pets, Arizona) is an online database that lets pet owners confirm whether a practice is corporate-owned, starting with clinics in Arizona.

• PrivateEquityVet.org map (US/Canada) is a searchable map of thousands of clinics known to be owned by private equity or large corporates.

• Investigative news tables, for example, some Canadian outlets now publish searchable lists showing which clinics in a province are corporate vs independent.

  
  

• These tools aren’t perfect or global yet, but they’re a strong starting point if you live in an area that’s covered.

  
  

6. Read between the lines: what’s not said.

• Independent clinics are usually proud of being locally owned. Advocacy sites for independent vets even advise them to say so clearly.

• Things you might see on a truly independent clinic’s site:

• Locally owned and operated since 1987.

• Privately owned practice.

• Independent veterinarians serving our community.

• By contrast, corporate-owned clinics often:

• Emphasize in the community for 30 years while saying nothing about recent changes in ownership.

• Highlight continuity of staff and the same trusted faces, even after a sale.

• Use phrases like supported by a wider network without explaining who is in that network.

• Silence about ownership, especially in a profession where corporate consolidation is now common, can itself be a clue.

  
  

7. Ask directly (and don’t apologize for asking).

You are absolutely entitled to know who your vet works for.

• You don’t need to be confrontational. A calm, straightforward question at the front desk is enough:

• Is this clinic independently owned, or is it part of a corporate group?

• Who actually owns the practice, the vets here, or a company?

• If it’s part of a group: Which group is that?

• A transparent clinic should be able to answer clearly and without defensiveness. If the answer feels evasive (we’re locally run ... but no one will name the owner), that tells you something too.

• You can also ask follow-up questions that matter to you:

• If I have financial limits, can we talk openly about options?

• Do your vets have the final say on treatment, or do head-office policies set limits?

• Do you have flexibility for longer consultations when cases are complicated?

• These are not accusations. They’re questions about how decisions are made for your pet.

  
  

8. What to do with the information.

• Finding out your clinic is corporate or PE-owned doesn’t automatically mean it’s bad, and being independent doesn’t automatically mean it’s perfect.

• What ownership does influence is:

• Incentives: revenue targets, pricing strategies, and growth expectations.

• Decision-makers: are big decisions made in the building, or in a different city or country?

• Stability: corporates can invest in equipment and training, but they can also restructure, close branches, or flip the business to another investor.

• For some pet owners, that matters a lot. For others, the relationship with their individual vet is what counts most.

• Either way, you deserve the chance to make an informed choice:

• If you value independent practice, you can actively seek out clinics that clearly state locally owned or are absent from corporate maps.

  
  

• If your favorite vet now works in a corporate hospital, you might decide to stay, but you’ll understand the pressures they’re under.

  
  

Rick’s Commentary

Trust in veterinary medicine is built on small, human things:

• The way a nurse handles a nervous cat.

• The extra five minutes your vet spends explaining a lab result.

• The honest conversation about money when times are tight.

Ownership doesn’t replace those things, but it shapes the environment in which they happen.

You can’t control who owns every clinic in your city.

But you can learn who owns yours.

Check the fine print. Use the registries. Follow the job ads. Try the maps when they’re available. And if you’re still not sure, look your vet, or practice manager, in the eye and ask:

Who owns this practice?

You’re not being difficult.

You’re being a responsible advocate for your pet.

Selected Sources

Is Your ‘Local’ Animal Hospital Corporate-Owned? https://www.pets.care/is-your-local-animal-hospital-corporate-owned/

How can I find out whether my vets is a corporate? https://vethelpdirect.com/vetblog/2023/10/06/how-can-i-find-out-whether-my-vets-is-a-corporate/

Use our searchable table to find out who owns or co-owns your veterinary clinic. https://www.cbc.ca/news/marketplace/use-our-searchable-table-to-find-out-who-owns-or-co-owns-your-veterinary-clinic-1.7436977

Cause for Paws: The rising cost of pet care. https://www.cbc.ca/news/marketplace/cause-for-paws-the-rising-cost-of-pet-care-1.7438275

Veterinary Care is Now Big Business. https://www.vetlocal.us/about

Vet Map & List . https://privateequityvet.org/

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