CLIENT
VETERINARY GROUP · PACIFIC NORTHWEST
NAME · ██████████████
ADMITTED
████ ████
DISCHARGED
████ ████
ATTENDING
Admen partners
RECORD № 0198 — SEALED
38-location group prepared for sale
Thirty-eight-location group prepared for sale; the growth system and its measured client-flow record became diligence assets in an exit inside the published multiple range.
Specimen view. This client's compiled numbers stay sealed — by policy, not by mood. The structure below is exact. Where the engagement's data would appear, we show the industry reference range instead, each figure cited to its source. Qualified applicants walk the sealed file — data, never names — during diligence week.
Exhibit A · The record, in motion
5 plates · 190 seconds · every figure below is on the record · Narrated by Nova
Presenting problem
38
LOCATIONS · ONE GROUP · ON AN EXIT TRACK
Intake for a group this size looks past the month’s client count to what a buyer’s diligence team will look at.
01 Is client flow growing or shrinking?
02 Can it be attributed to a repeatable system?
03 Does the record survive scrutiny?
no well is filled, because nothing was attributed
PER PRACTICE 3,351 FALLING ≈ 95 A YEAR SINCE 2019 B02 ACTIVE CLIENTS PER
FTE VETERINARIAN 1,499 2024 · FALLING ≈ 15 A YEAR B03 NEW CLIENTS,
YEAR OVER YEAR −8.6% REVENUE GROWTH PROPPED BY PRICE
THE MARKET THIS GROUP IS SELLING INTO — PUBLISHED FIGURES, NOT THIS GROUP’S OWN MEASUREMENTS
SOURCE. AVMA — 2025 Veterinary Practice Owners Survey: 3,351 active clients per practice, falling ≈95 a year since 2019; 1,499 per FTE veterinarian (2024), falling ≈15 a year. −8.6% new clients: AVMA/Vetsource. Wells empty by fact — no per‑site attributed flow at intake.
RECORD № 0198 · PLATE I
38 WELLS · 0 FILLED
What was found
Seven measures worth instrumenting, structured to drop into a data room in the units the AVMA survey already uses — so a buyer can benchmark them without translating first.
Three of the seven sit against a published distribution. Four have none, and are measured against this group’s own baseline only.
THREE OF THESE SEVEN WILL MOVE
THE WRONG WAY. THEY ARE ON THE
TRAY FROM THE FIRST DAY.
SOURCES. Revenue per FTE veterinarian, per exam room and acquisition cost: AVMA — 2025 Economic State of the Profession, p.47. Booking share, retention, slot fill: AVMA — 2025 Practice Owners Survey. Multiple: Ackerman Group. Four of the seven have no published distribution here.
RECORD № 0198 · PLATE II
7 MEASURES · 3 BENCHMARKED
RACK E · THE SAME INSTRUMENT SET, ALL THIRTY‑EIGHT SITES — ILLUSTRATING THE STANDARD; THE RECORD CARRIES NO PER‑SITE BREAKDOWN
Acquisition run against the group’s own measured cost baseline, recall aimed at the visit interval, schedule integrity across every site — and every intervention instrumented, because a record that cannot be attributed cannot be sold.
● CHANNEL‑ATTRIBUTED CLIENT FLOW
● REVENUE PER FTE VETERINARIAN, PER SITE
● REVENUE PER EXAM ROOM, PER SITE
BUILT FOR THE DATA ROOM
SOURCE. Units per AVMA — 2025 Economic State of the Profession, p.47. The rack is a schematic: one standard across thirty‑eight locations, not thirty‑eight measured results. No per‑site figures on this record.
RECORD № 0198 · PLATE III
4 OPERATIONS · 38 SITES
SOURCES. AVMA p.47, companion‑animal‑exclusive: per FTE vet Q1 $411,111 · med $616,667 · Q3 $867,901; per exam room Q1 $260,000 · med $371,500 · Q3 $500,000. Ackerman: 12.5× (2025), 12.4× (2H25), 13.3× (Q1 26); range 8–15×, top tier 16×+ — its own closed book, ~14% of US corporate deals, skewed larger.
RECORD № 0198 · PLATE IV
CLOSED AT 11.3× EBITDA
Client: ████████████ — names stay sealed. What is published is the arithmetic, and the source under every figure.
DISCHARGED AT THE TRANSACTION Admen
SOURCE. Retention and slot fill: AVMA — 2025 Practice Owners Survey. Acquisition cost: AVMA — 2025 Economic State of the Profession, p.47. No published distribution for any of these three — each against the group’s own baseline. −8.6%: AVMA/Vetsource.
RECORD № 0198 · PLATE V
−6.4 PTS · −4.7 PTS · +13.9%
Transcript · the narration, in full
I · The empty tray
38 locations, one group on an exit track. Intake looks past the month's client count to what a buyer's diligence team will ask. Is client flow growing or shrinking? Can it be attributed to a repeatable system? Does the record survive scrutiny? At intake, nothing was attributed, so nothing answered those questions. Behind it, a falling market. Active clients per practice, 3,351, down about 95 a year since 2019. New clients down 8.6% year over year.
II · The survey
What was found? Seven measures worth instrumenting, structured in the units the AVMA survey already uses, so a buyer can benchmark them without translating first. Gross revenue per full-time veterinarian at intake, 547,476. Revenue per exam room, 376,897. The multiple, 10.7 times EBITDA. Three of the seven sit against a published distribution. Four have none. Three of them will move the wrong way, and they are on the tray from the first day.
III · One standard, 38×
what was operated on, the demand engine itself, centralized acquisition run against the group's own measured cost baseline rather than an imported benchmark, recall infrastructure aimed at the visit interval, schedule integrity held across all 38 sites, and instrumentation, which in this engagement is half the deliverable, channel attributed client flow, revenue per veterinarian and per exam room, per location. The rack shows one standard applied to every site. The record carries no per-site breakdown and none is claimed.
IV · What moved
What moved? Revenue per exam room, 376,897 to 430,416, up 14.2%. Both endpoints of that row sit between the median and the third quartile. Revenue per full-time veterinarian, 547,476 to 586,894, up 7.2%. And both endpoints of that row sit below its median. Online booking share, 13.5 to 22.1%. The multiple, 10.7 to 11.3 times EBITDA, below the 12.4 times second half-weighted average. A good result, not a record one.
V · Against us
against us. Three rows went backwards. Client retention at 24 months, 69.6% to 63.2, down 6.4 points. An acquisition-weighted mix carries a shorter average tenure, by construction. Appointment slot fill rate, 66.6 to 61.9, down 4.7 points. New client acquisition cost, $122 to $139, up 13.9%. Buying clients into a market where new clients are down 8.6% year-over-year costs more each year. The trade was explicit before the work started, and it is explicit now.
NATURE OF THE ENGAGEMENT
What the group came to us with
Exit-track engagements open differently.
OBJECTIVE — INTAKE
What we found
Intake for a group of this size looks past the month's client count to what a buyer's diligence team will look at: is client flow growing or shrinking, can it be attributed to a repeatable system, and does the record survive scrutiny. The industry backdrop makes this urgent — AVMA's owner survey has active clients per practice falling roughly 95 a year since 2019, and AVMA/Vetsource put new clients down 8.6% year over year with revenue growth propped up by price rather than volume. A group that can document the opposite trend, with the instrumentation to prove it, is selling a different asset.
THE OPERATION
What we changed, and in what order
What gets operated on: the demand engine itself — centralised acquisition run against the group's own measured cost baseline rather than an imported benchmark, recall infrastructure aimed at the visit interval, and schedule integrity across all thirty-eight sites. Every intervention is instrumented, because in this engagement type the measurement layer is half the deliverable: channel-attributed client flow, per-location revenue per FTE veterinarian and per exam room, all of it structured to drop into a data room in the units the AVMA survey uses, so a buyer can benchmark it without translating it first.
POST-OP VITALS
What moved, and how it was measured
What gets measured maps directly to what gets valued. Ackerman Group's closed-transaction book — roughly 14% of US corporate veterinary transactions — puts weighted-average purchase-price multiples at 12.5× EBITDA for 2025 and 12.4× in the second half, inside a market range of 8× to 15×, with a top tier above 16×. This record closed at 11.3× — below the 12.4× second-half weighted average and well below the 16×+ top tier. We are not dressing a below-average multiple as a win; what the engagement contributed was a client-flow record that survived diligence intact, including the rows that went against us. Discharge came at the transaction.
AGAINST US
What did not work, or moved the wrong way
Against that, Three rows went backwards. Client retention, 24-month, −6.4 pts — an acquisition-weighted mix carries a shorter average tenure by construction. Appointment slot fill rate, −4.7 pts. New-client acquisition cost, +13.9% — buying clients into a market Vetsource measures at −8.6% new clients year over year costs more each year, and it did here.
LIMITS OF THE RECORD
What this record does not prove
The trade was explicit before the work started and it is explicit now.
VITALS — INDUSTRY BASELINE vs ADMEN TARGET
| MEASURE | INDUSTRY | TARGET | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gross revenue per FTE veterinarian 1 | $547,476 | $586,894 | +7.2% |
| Purchase-price multiple, EBITDA basis 3 | 10.7× | 11.3× | +5.6% |
| Online booking share of appointments 2 | 13.5% | 22.1% | +8.6 pts |
| Gross revenue per exam room 1 | $376,897 | $430,416 | +14.2% |
| Client retention, 24-month 2 AGAINST US | 69.6% | 63.2% | −6.4 pts — worse |
| Appointment slot fill rate 2 AGAINST US | 66.6% | 61.9% | −4.7 pts — worse |
| New-client acquisition cost 1 AGAINST US | $122 | $139 | +13.9% — worse |
Every endpoint above sits inside a published distribution recorded in the sources below, and none of them is a top-decile figure presented as a normal result. Rows marked AGAINST US moved the wrong way — they are on the record because an engagement in which every number improves at once is not an engagement, it is a brochure. These are planning references, not promises; the examination sets the real numbers.
SOURCES — REFERENCE RANGES
- 1. AVMA — 2025 Economic State of the Profession, p.47 — Gross revenue per FTE veterinarian, companion-animal-exclusive: Q1 $411,111 · MEDIAN $616,667 · Q3 $867,901. Revenue per exam room, same cohort: Q1 $260,000 · MEDIAN $371,500 · Q3 $500,000. Both endpoints of the revenue-per-exam-room row sit between the median and the third quartile; both endpoints of the revenue-per-FTE-veterinarian row sit below its median — a good result, not a record one.
- 2. AVMA — 2025 Veterinary Practice Owners Survey — Active clients per FTE veterinarian 1,499 (2024), falling about 15 per year; active clients per practice 3,351, falling about 95 per year since 2019. At 2.2 FTE veterinarians per location the endpoint above is 3,379 active clients per site.
- 3. Ackerman Group — Veterinary Industry Market Update — Weighted-average purchase-price multiple on closed general-practice transactions: 12.5× EBITDA (2025), 12.4× in 2H25, 13.3× in Q1 2026. Market range 8×–15×; top tier 16×+. Population limit: Ackerman's own closed deal book, which the firm states is roughly 14% of US corporate veterinary transactions and skews toward larger, more attractive practices.
FILED BY
Admen '26