It’s not just vets it’s plumbing, hvac, medical practices. Small PE funds consolidate a few small ones then sell to a bigger PE fund which consolidates a bunch of those and so on
Yeah, it's wild. The guy who fixed my garage door recently told me he sold his small time, but well rated garage door repair company to a PE firm. They also bought all his rivals. I had gotten a few quotes and everyone wanted to do a full replacement for several thousand, insisting it was all junk. He fixed it in 20 minutes for $80 and was firm that everything was absolutely in great shape except for the small problem he fixed.
The back end of all these companies is the same, some call center/scheduler that manages everything very cheap. They run the purchased companies as fronts and jack the prices and push for big replacement/upgrades until reviews dip. Then they dissolve the company into a generic regional company and sell that to a national like servicepro.
Sure, but that's if it needs a replacement. OP didn't.
I had the same happen with a toilet; the float needed replacement, but the big plumbing firm claimed it'd be better to replace the whole toilet. Toilet was fine.
