Cvs Share Discussion Threads

[wallywoo] 12/4/2024 08:26

I think the risk was cma / industry coming out with a list of actions that would immediately hit profits.Instead it is likely that the cma investigation will drag on for ages, with little or no action. Hence a rally, that hopefully will continue.

[wad collector] 11/4/2024 14:35

Don't think the CMA are updating , it is just that today marks the closure of their consultation period.
So presumably not the cause of today's sharp rise.

[wallywoo] 09/4/2024 12:16

I think the cma are committed to updating their investigation on 11/4/24 (Thursday). Will be volatile this week. Cyber incident not helping, though unlikely to effect a vet business too hard imo.

Have bgt a few at 932 today. Let's see if they are a good trade or not!

[bulltradept] 08/4/2024 08:29

Certainly low prices rejected, so perhaps a floor for now?

[lomax99] 08/4/2024 08:06

It is increasingly the world we live in, they appear to be responding well to the incident.

[bulltradept] 08/4/2024 07:37

More bad news today.

[yump] 06/4/2024 19:53

This is all a bit confused isn't it ?

Foreign vets have gone home. So is that foreigners pretending to be Brits ? Or Brits who weren't really Brits, because they crossed water to get here at some point ? Or vets from overseas that came here to earn better money ? and did they come from countries that torture animals ?

As for those Romans ! Come over here ruining our rural mud life, leaving us with roads, aqueducts, sewers, art... Don't get me started on the Vikings !

[ivyspivey] 05/4/2024 17:35

PS I know lots of CVS vets who are British so you must be looking in the wrong place mind you I do visit a lot of different sites every week.

[ivyspivey] 05/4/2024 17:33

Roddy local practices ask where your pet has previously been registered so they can obtain a clinical history.
They are perfectly happy to treat pets from a neighbouring practice providing they re register unless they are a bad credit risk.
ATB

[roddyb] 05/4/2024 14:44

Strange thing, “shopping around”, the surgeries ask where your pet is registered and won’t treat your dog if a neighbouring clinic has treated it before? I think this is another part of the murkiness that is being exposed to the light. I also expect the insurers have a hand in this as they like to deal with one vet and not several.

If this follows the funeral service CMA event from three years ago, then Concessions will be made, the business will still be profitable but not as profitable as before, there will be a stream of bad news for the next 12 months and then CVS will start to recover very slowly.

[lomax99] 05/4/2024 13:57

Recent note:

Liberum, quoting Smith, argued that competition concerns were likely more a result of consumers not shopping around, given the often stressful nature of seeking pet care.
“If your dog is sick, you just want to get it sorted out,” said Smith, “you don't want to go and shop around at four different vets to get different prices”.
Remedies are likely to tackle the lack of information on rival services and products. The Competition and Markets Authority would likely look to enforce more transparency, rather than taking drastic measures such as forcing disposals and capping product prices, Liberum analysts said in a note.
“??The main remedies are likely to be around information disclosure and there is nothing to stop the industry adopting those changes ahead of time,” the bank reassured, having interviewed the regulator’s ex-legal head, Tom Smith.
“The read across for CVS is perhaps less significant than one might have thought and contrary to some commentators, we don’t think that CVS is dead money.
“For Pets at Home, the impact is likely to be negligible with its differentiated model insulating it to a large degree.”
Britain’s CMA launched an investigation into the pet medicines and treatment market last month warning owners were often uninformed on pricing and could be overpaying as a result.

[roddyb] 05/4/2024 09:44

Roddyb is not a short because he has never understood how you actually open an account to short a share.

Roddyb was burnt (cremated) by Dignity when it faced the identical situation of being a duopoly investigated by CMA.

As a pet owner, I have not seen a British vet in years at CVS, the Brexit argument is not born out by my experiences. Whilst prices escalate the business is targeted by both Parties as being an easy win for headlines to counter the cost-of-living crisis that they are hoping the voters will judge them on.

Foreign vets are able to migrate to Britain as their services and CVS’s ability to organise visas saw off that problem.

[bulltradept] 22/3/2024 07:43

"As a result of Brexit, the process for applying to work in the UK has become much more complicated, preventing many European candidates from easily migrating. This has contributed to the huge fall of 68% in qualified EU-based vets moving to the UK between the years 2019-2021.

According to Charles Hartwell, CEO of a provider of public health veterinary services Eville & Jones, prior to Brexit, there was a need for approximately 2,000 vets each year – with 1,000 produced by the UK vet school system. This created a gap of about 1,000 professionals filled by vets from the EU, although, which, according to, finished abruptly with Brexit. "

If they arrive in a dingy they'll be fine!

[undervaluedassets] 21/3/2024 16:30

I think roddyb is short.

It is supply and demand isn't it.

All the foreign vets have gone home thanks to brexit.

There is massive shortage of vets in the UK

www.themedicportal.com/application-guide/veterinary-medicine/veterinary-medicine-hot-topic-shortage-of-vets-in-the-uk/#:~:text=Is%20There%20a%20Shortage%20of,its%20pool%20of%20available%20professionals.

[lomax99] 21/3/2024 08:48

Added a few more.

[bulltradept] 21/3/2024 08:14

Looks like you are right, Mr Market is looking for clarity.

[roddyb] 18/3/2024 13:38

I am hoping this will recover but there are very valid concerns as to how these companies price their services and fail to disclose pricing and dissuade pet owners from shopping around. The CMA are going to land some blows just as they did with Dignity Funeral services.

Management will be scared to do share buybacks during the CMA investigation and probably scared to pay an increased dividend? They will certainly be delaying purchasing any more UK vet practices.

Not looking good for the next 6 months.

[dogwalker] 16/3/2024 15:18

Re 902 above, it'd be interesting to know Liberum's recommendation & target price now, now that the CMA have decided to proceed.

[wallywoo] 16/3/2024 12:05

IVC Evidensia are the biggest player in the UK market with around 1000 UK locations (2500 worldwide). They are a private equity outfit, therefore, not mentioned in press. But are more then 5x the size of cvs (ww).


To me, the trend towards larger groups is all about economies of scale, not about exploiting a monopoly (most small vets have a near monopoly in their location anyway). I think it is likely any competition authority will come to the same conclusion. Making these practices cut their price will just close the smaller, less efficient vets and not help the market.


For those reasons I think this will recover over the next few months and have invested here yesterday at 1005. This share price drop could also attract a speculative bid imho. The USA are well ahead of UK, Europe, Australia with large vet groups. I am sure they will be looking at cvsg with interest now!! Huge companies such as Mars (already own 180 uk practices), Walmart etc are in this sector.

[lomax99] 16/3/2024 06:37

CVS discount is too high, says LiberumThe discount at which veterinary group CVS (CVSG) trades is 'too high', given the competition watchdog's review into vet practices is likely to prove there is no case to answer, says Liberum.Analyst Seb Jantet retained his 'buy' recommendation and target price of £22 on the stock, which gained 1.4% to £14.92 at the end of last week after its interim results. The shares have shed 21% over the year following the Competitions & Markets Authority (CMA) decision to investigate whether vets were providing consumers with value for money.Jantet said there was not a lot of new information in the result but added that 'we are still waiting for the most important piece of information, being the CMA's initial decision which is still expected in early 2024'.'While the shares have recovered a little over the last few months, they are still trading on undemanding multiples both in absolute terms and in relation to historic ratings, on a current year 2024 embedded value to pre-tax profit multiple of 9.9 times,' he said.'While we accept that the CMA uncertainty warrants a discount over the historic rating of around 15 times, the discount looks too high to us, especially given our view that there is a good chance the CMA will conclude there isn't a case to answer when it next updates.'

[wad collector] 15/3/2024 18:40

Well that took another hammering today. Below £10 for first time in 4 yrs. Timed my buy badly a couple of weeks ago. There seems a lot of pessimism priced in now. Suspect a gradual recovery will happen but not until more CMA clarity.

[tsmith2] 15/3/2024 09:59

overhang cleared? 50k odd sell reported

[bulltradept] 13/3/2024 17:58

Mmmm got to stay above a tenner...

[travis2] 13/3/2024 12:14

To add to that CVS also own one of the biggest online pet pharmacies (Animed) so they have that base covered too.