CMA transparency changes may obscure private equity-owned vet chains
Pet owners could unwittingly continue paying more at vet practices secretly owned by large private equity firms after the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) softened new transparency rules following industry investigation. The CMA had previously found that a lack of competition and ownership transparency in the £6.3bn vet market had driven up prices, with owners paying 16.6% more on average at large corporate-owned chains than at independent practices, prompting proposed reforms including a £21 cap on prescription costs. Critics argue the watered-down wording now lets multinational owners hide behind familiar high-street brand names rather than disclosing their true corporate parent, undermining the reform's original purpose.
The Progressive Veterinary Association (PVA) has threatened the CMA with a judicial review after the regulator changed its draft rules from requiring disclosure of the "corporate vet group" to the vaguer term "network or group", meaning practices can display a local or brand name instead of naming the ultimate owner. More than 60% of UK vet practices are owned wholly or partly by six groups, including CVS, Pets at Home, Medivet, IVC and VetPartners (all private equity-backed) and Linnaeus, owned by Mars Petcare. The CMA defended the change, saying disclosing obscure parent-company names might not benefit pet owners more than familiar high-street branding, but the PVA and vets such as Dr Iain McGill argue owners deserve full ownership information to make informed choices and support cheaper independent practices.
- CMA softened rules requiring vets to disclose true corporate ownership to pet owners.
- Vets' group threatens judicial review, saying change lets firms hide behind brand names.
- Six groups, mostly private equity-owned, control over 60% of UK vet practices.
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Pet ownership in the veterinary sector has changed a great deal in recent years. Where most surgeries were once run by local vets, the majority of UK practices are now owned wholly or partly by a small number of large corporate groups, several of them backed by private equity investors, alongside one owned by the pet food giant Mars. Many of these practices still trade under familiar local or high-street names, so pet owners are often unaware of who actually owns the business they are using.
The Competition and Markets Authority, the UK's competition regulator, looked into this market and concluded that the lack of clarity around ownership was contributing to higher prices, with those attending corporate-owned practices generally paying more than those using independent vets. It drew up proposed rules meant to make ownership clearer to customers, alongside other changes such as a cap on prescription costs, as part of a wider effort to make the market fairer and more transparent.
The dispute now centres on how strict those new disclosure rules should be, and specifically on the wording used to describe who owns a practice. Vets and campaign groups who wanted fuller disclosure argue that a softer approach risks defeating the point of the reform, since it could allow large owners to remain effectively hidden behind local branding. The regulator maintains that its approach still serves pet owners' interests, but the disagreement matters because it affects how much people can find out about who is setting the prices they pay for their pets' care.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Advocates for full ownership disclosure argue that pet owners cannot make genuinely informed choices, or exert competitive pressure on prices, if they do not know a beloved local practice is actually part of a private-equity-owned chain with commercial incentives to upsell tests, medicines and procedures. They point to the CMA's own finding of a 16.6% price gap and argue that requiring the actual corporate parent to be named, rather than a vague "network or group" label, is a modest and proportionate step that lets owners who value independent, locally accountable vets seek them out, and creates the transparency needed for real market discipline to take hold.
The case against
Those sympathetic to the CMA's softened wording argue that consumers are better served by information they can actually recognise and act on in the moment, and that obscure corporate parent names (many pet owners will never have heard of the private equity firms or holding companies involved) may confuse rather than inform, especially when a practice's familiar high-street branding, staff and premises have not changed. They would also note that large groups can bring investment, out-of-hours cover and consistent clinical standards that smaller practices may struggle to match, so ownership structure alone is an imperfect proxy for whether a given practice serves its clients well, and that regulators must weigh the practical benefit of a disclosure requirement against the compliance burden and risk of information overload it places on both practices and pet owners.
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Originally published by The Guardian as “Pet owners at risk of being ripped off by private equity firms as vet ownership rules change”.