Who Owns Veterinary Hospitals in Seattle?
In June, I wrote a blog about who is buying veterinary hospitals. I looked at the size of each of the different groups and where their capital came from. Since that time, many people have alerted me to sales in the Puget Sound area. It seemed like a lot of practices were changing hands but I had not counted. I decided to find out who owns veterinary hospitals in Seattle.
Seattle is one of the regions in which the FTC forced VCA to sell practices to prevent a monopoly by the Mars family. I was curious to know what percent of the veterinary market the Mars family still controlled in Seattle after divesting.
Determining who owns veterinary hospitals in Seattle
I decided to look at ownership for veterinary hospitals within the city limits of Seattle. Puget Sound is a big area with fuzzy borders so city limits were easier to define. I know many people here but I confirmed ownership using the business look up tool through Washington state’s Department of Revenue . I also confirmed sales using the consolidators’ websites.
The Results
The table below lists veterinary hospitals in Seattle. It lists whether they are locally owned by veterinarians, owned by out of state veterinarians, or owned by a larger outside entity.
I identified 65 veterinary hospitals or mobile veterinary specialty providers based in Seattle (please email me if I missed anyone). Of the 65, 21.5% (14) are now owned by large groups with primarily non-veterinary ownership. The MARS family owns 15.4% of all hospitals in Seattle (10 of the 65) through their BluePearl, Banfield, and VCA divisions. This is quite a large percentage of the market but honestly less than I expected.
Two bright spots
- Of locally owned hospitals, 31 of 49 (63.3%) have at least one female veterinary owner
- There are new practices that have opened this year with local veterinary ownership
The Tables
| Seattle Local Veterinary Owned Hospitals | |
| Ancient Arts Holistic Veterinary Services | |
| Animal Eye Clinic | |
| Animal Surgical Clinic of Seattle | |
| Atlantic Vet Hospital | |
| Aurora Animal Hospital | |
| Ballard Animal Hospital | |
| Bird and Exotic Vet Clinic | |
| Cascade Heights Vet Center | |
| City Cat Mobile | |
| Columbia City Veterinary Hospital | |
| Dermatology Center for Animals | |
| Eastlake Vet Hospital | |
| Elliott Bay Animal Hospital | |
| The Family Pet | |
| Four Paws | |
| Greenlake Animal Hospital | |
| Greentree Animal Hospital | |
| Greenwood Animal Hospital | |
| Hawthorne Hills Vet Hospital | |
| Illumipet/Vision Pet Imaging | |
| Interbay Vet Care Center | |
| Jet City Animal Clinic | |
| Lake Union Vet Clinic | |
| Lake Union Vet Clinic – 2nd location | |
| Madison Park Veterinary Hospital | |
| Madison Street Animal Hospital | |
| Maple Leaf Pet Corner | |
| Maple Leaf Veterinary Care Center | |
| Mercer Street Vet | |
| North Seattle Veterinary Clinic | |
| Northeast Veterinary Hospital | |
| Northgate Veterinary Hospital | |
| Northwest Cardiology Consultants | |
| Northwest Veterinary Hospital | |
| Pet Care Center Luna Park | |
| Phinney Ridge Animal Clinic | |
| Queen Anne Animal Clinic | |
| Rainier Beach Vet Hospital | |
| Rainier Vet Hospital | |
| Ravenna Animal Hospital | |
| Seattle Natural Veterinary Center | |
| Seatown Vet Care | |
| South Seattle Vet Hospital | |
| Sunset Hill Vet and Rehab | |
| Third and Stewart Animal Wellness | |
| Urban Animal – Capital Hill | |
| Urban Animal – Downtown | |
| Urban Vet | |
| West Seattle Animal Hospital |
| Owned by Veterinarians outside Seattle | |
| Animal Medical Center of Seattle | |
| Northwest based Veterinary Group Ownership | |
| Companion Pet Clinic | |
| Large Consolidator/Non Veterinary Ownership | |
| Emerald City Emergency Clinic | Lakefield Group/Desmarais family |
| Broadway Vet Hospital | Wellhaven |
| Cat Clinic of Seattle | WA Vet Services/Pet Vetcare |
| Lien Animal Clinic | Pathway Veterinary Alliance |
| Banfield – Aurora | Banfield/MARS |
| Banfield – Ballard | Banfield/MARS |
| Banfield – Capitol Hill | Banfield/MARS |
| Banfield – Carkeek Park | Banfield/MARS |
| Banfield – Queen Anne | Banfield/MARS |
| Seattle Vet Specialists – Downtown | BluePearl/MARS |
| BluePearl – North Seattle | BluePearl/MARS |
| VCA Crown Hill | VCA/MARS |
| VCA Magnolia | VCA/MARS |
| VCA West Seattle | VCA/MARS |
Why Publish this information?
My hope is to track these ownership transitions over time so that we have an evolving picture of our changing industry. With several owners nearing retirement who may not have associates willing to buy their practices, I expect we will see the percentage of non-veterinary, non-Seattle based owners increase. With the rising student debt of recent veterinary graduates, ownership is a larger (but still possible) stretch.
My big hope is that this information might spur other local veterinarians to take the plunge and look at ownership opportunities.
I’d love to hear your comments and thoughts.
7 comments
Two corrections were pointed out to me:
Animal Medical Center of Seattle is actually in Shoreline – 3 blocks outside of the city limits
I neglected to include a new locally owned hospital – Roosevelt Station.
Vision pet imaging/Illumipet is owned by Pathway vet alliance.
Mercer Street and Madison Street are now owned by a new corporation called Cara.
Also “Green Lake” not Greenlake. 🙂
Is aurora animal hospital now part of SVA?
It is part of PetVet Care Centers: https://www.petvetcarecenters.com/site/veterinary-hospital-locations
Thank you for doing this! I’ve been looking into this exact thing in my region seatac/olympia. It seems like more and more private owners are selling to larger corporations and we see ethical implications in terms of care for our staff and ability to deliver quality medicine.
When you say Aurora Animal Hospital, do you mean Aurora Veterinary Hospital? Because they are now corporate owned. Very sad to me, their prices have increased dramatically. They have good vets there, but I am forced to look elsewhere.