Final bids due for $1b-plus VetPartners sale
The VetPartners auction is nearing the end of its very short lifespan.
Street Talk understands binding offers for the up-for-grabs veterinary chain, which makes about $131 million a year, are due this week. The fast-tracked auction, launched in August, is being run by Jefferies with expectations of a circa $1.4 billion sale.
Pan-Asian private equity investor Affinity Equity Partners and Swedish private capital giant EQT Partners are toughing it out. Affinity Equity Partners has hired Macquarie Capital’s bankers while EQT is being advised by Morgan Stanley.
VetPartners is expected to be worth $1.4 billion. Dan Peled
US investment giant Ares emerged in the auction last month and was understood to be preparing a binding offer.
Street Talk can also reveal Goldman Sachs’ private equity unit was around the hoop but has since dropped out. The investment bank has been scaling up its investment teams and fundraising efforts in a bid to compete with the private equity giants for alternative assets. It’s held stakes in Brisbane-based cancer treatment business Icon Cancer Care and backed data centre giant AirTrunk, which is now shooting for a $10 billion-plus IPO.
VetPartners has 267 clinics in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, which helped it make $661 million revenue and $131 million EBITDA for the 2023 financial year. The sell-side pitch, previously reported by Street Talk, said VetPartners had grown its top line at 40 per cent over the past six years on a compounded basis and has a long runway to growth with just 20 per cent of the market now consolidated.
Sell-side adviser Jefferies has been shepherding suitors through a tight timetable, thanks to VetPartners’ global parent National Veterinary Associates’ plan to float the
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