Common misconceptions when selling a veterinary practice

During an interview with dvm360's Fetch National Harbor, Christopher Rocchio, DVM, CEO and founder of Monarch Practice Transitions, shared a few common misconceptions veterinary professionals have when it comes time for them to sell their practice. Throughout the interview, he highlights topics such as the idea that selling to corporations is straightforward and lucrative, but in reality, it may not be as attractive in the backend as it is in the initial offer.

Below is a partial transcript, edited lightly for clarity

Christopher Rocchio, DVM: There are almost 70 very aggressive corporate consolidators out there, and they have access to many of the practice owners information. And so I think the biggest misconception is practice owners feel like all these corporations want my practice. This is going to be a very easy thing to do to sell my practice. And so they venture out on their own, and these corporate consolidators are very friendly at first, and they're taking you out to dinner, and, you know, complimenting you. And then they give you an offer that seems almost more than you ever thought you would get. And at that point, when you sign a letter of intent. The whole process changes. The corporation now is doing what they call due diligence, and their goal is to go into your practice and find some sort of financial information to lower the price that they said they were going to sell it to you for. And so a lot of veterinarians practice owners that are out there doing it themselves. Really don't have anybody behind them to defend their financials. And these corporate people are very well trained. Many of them are MBAs. They're going to eat you for lunch.

So and at that point, what happens is you're faced with either walking away from the deal or just selling and saying, Okay, well, you know, we've been through the process even though we're not getting what we thought we were going to get. Let's just do it. And so we meet a lot of those practice owners who have tried to do it themselves and failed, and at that point that process is kind of spoiled. So you know, you really should have some sort of representation, a broker representing you financially in the negotiations, and a very good veterinary lawyer who's going to be representing you for all the legal terms that you're dealing with with the corporation.