[cowmoo728]

probably a significant amount, otherwise private equity wouldn't be buying veterinary practices all around the nation. I know that the service I receive at a veterinary clinic I used to go to has become worse, a number of vets quit and were replaced with new younger ones, and the price increases have drastically outpaced inflation. all after the original partners sold to private equity.

[dan-robertson]

I don’t really know what the answer should be. I somewhat arbitrarily chose a vet, found the group they are a Bart of, and looked up their accounts up to autumn 2022:

  Turnover 987 =
    Goods sold 96
  + services 776
  + ‘health club’ 113

I didn’t look into the health club thing. I think it’s a subscription and it probably includes regular checkups, vaccines, and maybe some other random things.

  Staff costs 442 (50% of turnover)
  Lease payments 37
  
  Profit 69.3 (~7% of turnover)

I’m not very good at reading financial statements and I didn’t try to dig through all the costs. There are things like buying new equipment as well as things needed for each operation. The group spent 118m on buying up other practices, but I don’t know how much leverage they had. If we take those numbers in a conservative “what if they were trying not to profit” scenario where they have no leverage, that’s 177 in “profit” out of 987 in income, or about $1800 if you assign it proportionally to a $10k skewer removal (or $700 if the acquisitions are counted as free).

I don’t know how those numbers look to you. To me, they don’t seem insane and I’m not sure the difference would matter much — I doubt the person unwilling to pay 10k would be willing to pay 8.2k. Also, I would guess that sort of surgery to be lower margin than routine things, though maybe competition drives it the other way.