WARRNAMBOOL Veterinary is to join Apiam Animal Health, a group of 12 veterinary clinics with a focus on production livestock located throughout Australia.
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Apiam is to be listed on Australian Stock Exchange on December 17 and will be a vertically integrated animal health business providing services that range from genetics to veterinary services, wholesale and retail of related products, logistics and technical services related to food-chain security.
Apiam’s listing on stock exchange follows other “roll-ups” of veterinary practices throughout Australia into groups but Apiam will have a focus on food production livestock.
Warrnambool Veterinary’s board of eight directors, who will become a management committee under the move, said the only change to its services would be a change “for the better.”
Practice manager Jennifer Davis said the current directors would “still be the ones making the decision about Warrnambool Veterinary.”
Warrnambool Veterinary director Dr Glenn Cuzens said much of the equity in Apiam would remain with the owners of the 12 veterinary businesses
The Warrnambool Veterinary name, logo, building and staff will not change.
“The only change will be our increased capacity to grow and refine our services to meet our clients changing needs, particularly within the dairy industry,” the directors said.
“Research, knowledge and skill sharing across the group will provide a proactive and forward thinking environment designed to set the benchmark for rural veterinary service delivery,” they said.
Apiam was initially founded by its current managing director Dr Chris Richards in 1998 as a single veterinary practice focused on the pig industry and has since been developed into an integrated animal health business.
Its chairman is Melbourne University veterinary and agricultural sciences professor Andrew Vizard.
Dr Cuzens said membership of the group would give the business the resources to roll out new services.
“We have made innovations in herd health programs.
“They can be spread across the group,” Dr Cuzens said.
Fellow director Dr Charlie Blackwood said the clinic had developed many innovations over the years such as computer programs for animal treatment. Joining Apiam would give it infrastructure to develop those programs further, he said.
