Your data on MRCVSonline
The nature of the services provided by Vision Media means that we might obtain certain information about you.
Please read our Data Protection and Privacy Policy for details.

In addition, (with your consent) some parts of our website may store a 'cookie' in your browser for the purposes of
functionality or performance monitoring.
Click here to manage your settings.
If you would like to forward this story on to a friend, simply fill in the form below and click send.

Your friend's email:
Your email:
Your name:
 
 
Send Cancel

Sell up of veterinary practices continues
The transaction is Sovereign’s  largest sale to date.
Sovereign sells Linnaeus Group to Mars

Mars Petcare’s Veterinary Health Group has bought the Linnaeus Group from Sovereign Capital Partners, the UK private equity buy and build specialist.

The transaction is Sovereign’s seventh exit from its third fund, and represents its largest sale to date.

Sovereign backed the original Willows Veterinary Centre and Referral Service in September 2014, before undertaking to create the Linnaeus Group.

At exit, it had made 21 acquisitions, including North Downs Specialist Referrals, Avonvale, VRCC Specialists Referrals and Village Vet.

The group expanded from one to 87 sites in England, including five referral centres, and grew from a team of 120 to more than 1,400.

No financial terms have yet been disclosed.

Become a member or log in to add this story to your CPD history

RCVS Knowledge appoints Veterinary Evidence editor-in-chief

News Story 1
 RCVS Knowledge has welcomed Professor Peter Cockcroft as editor-in-chief for Veterinary Evidence.

A world-renowned expert in evidence-based veterinary medicine, Prof Cockcroft will lead the strategic development and editorial quality of the open-access journal. He was previously in the role from 2017-2020.

Katie Mantell, CEO of RCVS Knowledge, said: "We are excited about the extensive knowledge of evidence-based veterinary medicine and clinical veterinary research that Peter brings, and we look forward to working with him over this next phase of the journal's development." 

Click here for more...
News Shorts
CVS Group hit by cyber attack

CVS Group, which owns more than 450 veterinary practices in the UK, has been hit by a cyber attack.

In a statement, the group said the incident involved unauthorised external access to a limited number of its IT systems. As soon as the attack was discovered, the group took its IT systems temporarily offline, causing 'considerable operational disruption'.

It has warned that the security steps taken and ongoing plans to move its operational systems and IT infrastructure to the Cloud are likely to have an ongoing impact over a number of weeks.

Due to the risk that personal information was accessed, CVS has informed the Information Commissioner's Office. The company is working with third party consultants to investigate the incident.