BY STEVEN L MAY, CERTIFIED VETERINARY JOURNALIST
Somewhere in North America tonight, a veterinarian is closing up a hospital she has owned for twenty-eight years. She turns off the surgical lights, walks past kennels she once helped build with her own hands, and locks the back door. For most of her career, her practice has been her identity. Now, somewhere between fatigue and inflation and a workforce that no longer looks the way it did in 1997, she is beginning to ask the question every clinic owner eventually asks. What is this practice actually worth, and who can I trust to help me sell it?
That question, multiplied across thousands of independent veterinary hospitals, is the reason myVETgroup exists
A Firm Built on the Other Side of the Story
myVETgroup, known throughout the industry as MVG, is a strategic advisory firm dedicated exclusively to the veterinary profession Headquartered with offices in Canada and the United States, the firm reports having closed more than two billion dollars in transactions and draws on over eighty years of combined experience across clinic ownership, private equity, and corporate consolidation The numbers, impressive as they are, are not the most revealing part of the story The more telling detail is who built it, and why
The firm was founded by three men whose careers converged from very different directions. Raj Raheja, the co-founder and CEO, spent more than sixteen years inside the world of healthcare and private equity mergers and acquisitions. As CFO of consolidating veterinary and dental platforms in the United States, Raheja sat in the rooms where corporate buyers decided what a practice was worth. He oversaw more than three hundred fifty million dollars in transactions, grew a dental organization into the fourth largest in the United States, and quadrupled the size of a veterinary platform within three years. He says he saw, from the inside, how often independent owners arrived at the negotiating table unprepared, outgunned, and underrepresented. He founded MVG, in his own words, with the sole purpose of maximizing value for veterinary owners.
Dr. Mark de Wolde, the Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer, came at the same problem from the opposite shore. A 1993 graduate of the Ontario Veterinary College, Dr. de Wolde practiced in Canada, England, and New Zealand before settling in Southern Ontario, where he built five veterinary hospitals over fifteen years and co-founded the Upper Canada Veterinary Group Inc. He has been a clinic owner, an employer, an operator, and a surgeon. The City of Kingston named him Business Person of the Year, and in 2018 the Ontario Veterinary Medical Association honored him with its prestigious Award of Merit. To date he has personally helped facilitate nearly two hundred million in private practice transitions to corporate consolidators.
DVM, MRCVS Co-Founder, Chief Medical Officer
The third co-founder, Samir Meghji, brings what the firm describes as the missing piece. With thirteen years of private equity experience across North America and Europe, including a recent role as an investor with one of the largest veterinary corporate groups on the continent, Meghji has spent his career on the buy side of the table. He knows, in detail, how corporate purchasers model a practice, where they look for risk, and what causes them to raise an offer.
Three men. A consolidator’s CFO, a working veterinarian, and a private equity buyer. Between them, they built a firm that, by design, is difficult for the people on the other side of the deal to outmaneuver.
The Mission, Stated Plainly
Samir Meghji, Ivey HBA Co-Founder & Chief Financial Analyst
MVG’s stated mission is straightforward. The firm exists to empower every veterinary practice to earn and achieve more, to act as an advocate on behalf of the owner, and to enhance value while preserving the legacy the doctor has spent a lifetime building. The vision is equally clear. MVG intends to be the gold standard of veterinary transition advisory in North America, the firm that practice owners across the continent name without hesitation when asked who guided them through the most important transaction of their professional lives.
Why the Veterinary Community Is Turning to Independent Advisors
Most veterinarians sell a practice exactly once. Corporate consolidators buy hundreds. That asymmetry, more than any other single factor, is why an independent advisor has become, for many in the profession, less a luxury than a structural necessity.
The first argument for engaging a firm like MVG is information. Practice valuation in 2026 is not what it was a decade ago. Multiples have shifted, buyer behavior has evolved, and the gap between a fair offer and a great offer can run into seven figures on a single transaction MVG’s analysts, led by Senior Financial Analyst Fraser Barton, a Harvard MBA, and Dawson MacDonald, a former BDO Canada mid-market transaction advisor, build valuations meant to reflect what the market will actually pay today, rather than what it paid in 2019
The second is leverage. After interviewing four advisory firms, one client who owned six veterinary practices chose MVG and later wrote that the firm identified the right buyer and secured a sale price and structure well beyond their expectations Another client, after two years and two brokers without a single offer, met Director of Business Development Dr Bob Davis at a veterinary conference and signed with MVG; the deal closed Outcomes like these, the firm contends, are not accidents They are the product of a team that knows which buyers are active, what they are paying, and how to run a competitive process
The third is protection. Practice transitions involve due diligence, lease assignments, employment agreements, working capital adjustments, and purchase price holdbacks. Each of those clauses carries the potential to quietly erode the value an owner believed they had negotiated. MVG’s six-phase framework, namely Investigate and Evaluate, Plan and Prepare, Market and Negotiate, Due Diligence Support, Advise and Close, and Post-Transition Support, is designed to catch what tired owners and overworked attorneys can miss. Strategic partnerships with MLT Aikins, one of Western Canada’s leading full-service law firms with more than 300 lawyers, and Baker Tilly Canada extend that protection into the legal and tax layers of every deal.
The fourth reason is the one veterinarians rarely talk about. Legacy. A practice is not a spreadsheet. It is a team that has trusted the owner for years, a community of clients who chose this hospital over the one down the road, and a name on a sign that means something. MVG, built and led by people who have stood in those exam rooms themselves, treats that legacy as part of the deliverable. It preserves it, the founders say, because it understands it.
The veterinarian closing up tonight will retire eventually. The question is not whether she will sell. The question is whether she will sell alone, or with a team whose entire purpose is to make sure the work of her career is worth what it should be. That is the case for myVETgroup, and it is the case the veterinary profession is increasingly choosing to accept.
myVETgroup: A Comprehensive Service Overview
Experts in Veterinary Practice Growth, Transition, and Succession Planning
myVETgroup (MVG) is a strategic advisory firm dedicated exclusively to veterinary practice owners With more than 80 years of combined veterinary, private equity, finance, and operational experience, and over two billion dollars in veterinary transaction experience across North America, the firm offers tailored guidance for veterinarians seeking to build, grow, optimize, transition, or exit their practices
Unlike traditional advisory forms, MVG positions itself at the intersection of veterinary ownership, corporate consolidation, and private equity The team includes veterinarians who have owned and sold practices, former C-suite leaders from major consolidators, financial analysts, operational consultants, and transaction specialists, a roster the firm says allows it to advocate exclusively for veterinary practice owners while pursuing both financial outcome and legacy preservation
Meet the Pack
Mark de Wolde, DVM, MRCVS
Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer
Email: mark.dewolde@myvetgroup.com
Phone: +1 (613) 572-1570
Raj Raheja, BBA, MPAcc, CPA-CA
Co-Founder and CEO
Email: raj.raheja@myvetgroup.com
Phone: +1 (425) 698-5238
Samir Meghji, Ivey HBA
Co-Founder and Chief Financial Analyst
Email: samir.meghji@myvetgroup.com
Matt Friesen
Director of Business Development
Email: matt.friesen@myvetgroup.com
Phone: +1 (647) 383-9100
Michael Young
Director of Business Development
Email: michael.young@myvetgroup.com
Phone: +1 (416) 616-9969
Dr. Robert (Bob) Davis
Director of Business Development
Email: bob.davis@myvetgroup.com
Phone: +1 (508) 561-7119
General Inquiries
Email: info@myvetgroup.com
USA: +1 (425) 698-5238
Canada: +1 (613) 572-1570
Website: myvetgroup com
Meet the Pack
Tom Wheeler
Director of Business Development
Email: tom.wheeler@myvetgroup.com
Phone: +1 (540) 537-8118
Dr. Leon Freeland
Director of Business Development
Email: leon.freeland@myvetgroup.com
Phone: +1 (317) 679-8838
Brittany Conover
Director of Business Development
Email: brittany.conover@myvetgroup.com
Fraser Barton, MBA
Senior Financial Analyst and Transitions Lead
Email: fraser.barton@myvetgroup.com
Dawson MacDonald
Senior Analyst
Email: dawson.macdonald@myvetgroup.com
Phone: +1 (289) 887-5464
Natasha Raey
Client Service Manager
Email: natasha.raey@myvetgroup.com
Phone: +1 (778) 730-2436