YORK-based VetPartners has strengthened its farm group with the acquisition of one of the UK’s leading farm veterinary businesses.

LLM Farm Vets covers four prominent livestock regions in the UK - the Midlands, North Wales, Lancashire and Derbyshire.

VetPartners, which has its headquarters in Clifton Moor, has also expanded its portfolio of equine and small animal practices recently with the acquisition of Mayes and Scrine Equine Vets in Horsham, Sussex, and Cvets, a two-site small animal practices on The Wirral.

VetPartners now owns 99 veterinary practices, including 75 small animal practices, 13 mixed practices, six equine practices and five farm practices. They also own a research dairy, laboratory, veterinary nursing school and locum agency.

Two members of the LLM Farm Vets team have taken up key roles at VetPartners. Ian Cure has been appointed farm director and Den Leonard becomes ruminant commercial director.

After building up a strong base of small animal practices since it was established in October 2015, VetPartners moved into the equine, mixed and farm sectors last year.

Origin group, which owned businesses operating across farm, pig and poultry, as well as a laboratory and consulting business, joined VetPartners in 2018.

VetPartners CEO Jo Malone said: “We now have some of the best veterinary businesses from each species within our group. The next 12 months will see further growth in each of our species groups, as well as mixed practices, both in the UK and Europe.

“We are committed to our growing farm group, which will bring benefits of scale, local support for our teams and access to a wide range of excellent specialist services.

“We have attracted leading equine practices to set the tone on the standard of care and make it more appealing to other equine practices who want to be part of a bigger group.”

LLM Farm Vets vet Ian Cure added: “It wasn’t our plan to join a group, but when we met with Jo, we found that VetPartners shared our values and our vision for the future of the profession, which made us enthusiastic to be part of their journey.

“We wanted to be part of their growing farm group and help to drive it forward. Another key factor in our decision to join VetPartners is that they are part-owned and run by vets and we believe that will be a huge advantage going forward.”

VetPartners has vowed there will be no slowing down of their expansion as it continues to look for new practices and businesses in the sector to join the group.