We cannot thank you enough for the assistance you gave to us in the sale of our practice to VS! There is no way we could have navigated this without your guidance and help! You exceeded our expectations and we are grateful for your advice!
We have been very ‘ anti-corporate’ for many years, with the feeling that several corporations were swarming us like vultures, waiting to nose-dive as soon as we let our guard down. We dodged calls weekly from the various corporations trying to get their foot in the door and convince us to sell. As practice owners, we had hoped to keep our clinic as independent as possible, and provide our associates with the golden opportunity that we had as young professionals, to buy in.However, as we saw more and more colleagues partnering with corporate, we realized that it was going to be an uphill battle to be able to survive as an independent practice in this corporate-owned world. It also was not going to be realistic for our associates to afford to buy in at this point, with the growth we had experienced. In addition, the benefits of the management help these veterinarians were receiving was appealing to us, and intrigued us to open our minds to a potential corporate partnership after all.
Once we finally made the big decision to consider a corporate partnership, we did not know where to turn for help, and so we talked to our practice evaluator, who proceeded to put a proposal together to present to the three corps in the area. Luckily before we got too far, it was recommended that we consider speaking to My Vet Group (MVG) for additional assistance in this process.
MVG was a rather new group at this point, and so we were unsure of how they could help us. However it quickly became apparent that they had significant experience with knowing what the corporations were looking for in veterinary practices, including calculating more realistic EBITDA’s that more closely reflected the EBITDA calculations that these large companies were expecting. Their ability to gather practices into ‘baskets’ to present to the corps as a ‘ group sale’, provided more potential for leverage in the negotiation process. This was something we would not have had if we had stayed on our own.
MVG presented our ‘basket of clinics’ to a much wider group of corporate partners than we originally would have been exposed to with just our practice evaluator, which, in turn, led us to a significantly higher offer than we would have ever received otherwise! At the beginning, MVG scheduled regular meetings to help us to understand what the various corporations were looking for, and also what they each had to offer us. They supported us by joining us in the meetings when we met with the various corporations, and helped guide us in how to best present our practice. They assisted in our decision as to which corporation would be our best fit, and they continued to work closely with us throughout the ‘due diligence’ process and beyond closing, addressing questions, negotiating the various contracts, and just providing the support we needed with such an overwhelming life change! While there are many people behind the scenes at MVG, our main contacts were Raj and Mark, and they really helped make this transition smooth.
Raj is a financial professional, and was stellar in his negotiations with the corporations, including taking note of even the smallest details of concern in our Share Purchase Agreement (SPA) and our Employment Agreements (EA), to ensure that our needs were met, and decisions that were made were in our best interest We never had to deal with the corps directly. If we had a concern, we told Raj, and he went to bat for us! He was comforting to speak to and successful in the majority of the negotiations we had.
Mark’s knowledge as a veterinarian, who had already partnered with corporate himself, was of extreme benefit to us. His experience ‘in the trenches’ helped us to understand what to expect with this new partnership, personally and in our practices. He eased our minds with the upcoming changes we would have, and his personal experience was a huge asset when negotiating our terms of employment and non competition contractsThe assistance and support we received from MVG was beyond our expectations and we are so thankful that we had them to assist us through this… the biggest deal of our lives!!
Thank you MVG for all your guidance and support!!!