Our Strategy

Our 2024 Operational highlights

• We have continued investment in our facilities and equipment, with total capital expenditure of £43.1m, including the rollout of a new cloud-based practice management system
• We entered the Australian veterinary services market and completed 22 acquisitions of 28 practice sites in the year
• We have acquired a further five practices in the UK (six practice sites)
• We divested our sub-scale Netherlands and Republic of Ireland operations
• We have increased the number of vets by 5.8% (10.7% including acquisitions)
• We have reviewed our colleague benefits and increased our employer pension contributions

Our 2024 Financial highlights¹

• 2024 marked further progress against our plan to double adjusted EBITDA over five years, as outlined at our Capital Markets Day in 2022
• In the year, we disposed of our sub-scale Netherlands and Republic of Ireland operations. We have re-presented our numbers in 2024 and 2023 to reflect these operations as discontinued
• Revenue increased 9.9% to £647.3m (2023: £588.9m), benefitting from acquisitions made in the current and prior year and a continued focus on people and the provision of high-quality care
• Like-for-like (LFL) growth was 2.9%, impacted by: disruption from the cyber incident and subsequent actions; softer demand with cost of living pressure; publicity from the ongoing Competition and Markets Authority process; and the puppies and kittens from the COVID-19 boom being in their young adult age, requiring less veterinary intervention. Adjusted for the disruption from the incident, LFL sales growth would have been c.4.1% (unaudited)
• Adjusted EBITDA increased 4.7% to £127.3m from £121.6m and margin decreased to 19.7% from 20.6% due to the disruption from the cyber incident, cost inflation and investment in people, partially offset by Research and Development Expenditure Tax Credits of £12.8m (2023: £9.6m)
• Profit before tax decreased by 37.1% to £38.2m from £60.7m, impacted by the increase in business combination costs, finance expense and depreciation, all following an increase in acquisitions and capital expenditure in line with our strategy. In addition, there are £5.8m of exceptional items in relation to the CMA and the cyber incident
• We continue to have strong cash generation with cash generated from operations of £101.8m down from £107.9m in the prior year, with the increase in adjusted EBITDA offset by the year-on-year increase in acquisition costs and adverse working capital movements
• Leverage increased to 1.54x from 0.73x with cash generated from operations offset by increased investment in acquisitions and existing practices

Footnotes

^{1. Financial measures are defined in the 2024 Annual report.}