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YBG News This month Guernsey’s Young Business Group talks to Amanda Pratt, finance director of Vets4Pets, about her role and their fast expanding business. Tell me about Vets4Pets and your position there? Vets4pets has a fast growing network of small animal veterinary practices operating throughout the UK and Guernsey. We open brand new veterinary practices, based on a joint venture partnership business model, with veterinary surgeons and veterinary nurses. each practice operates under the Vets4pets brand – we are just about to open our 61st practice in Huddersfield. Here in Guernsey, our support office provides day-to-day business support to our partners, which means that we take away all of the administration of running a business and leave them to concentrate on what they do best: being a vet. Services we provide include a full accounting and company secretarial function, together with it, marketing and Hr support. additional operational, training and business development services are provided by our field-based employees in the UK. My role is finance director – that means i have overall responsibility for the production of both management and statutory accounts for all of our veterinary practices and our support centre companies, and everything that it entails, including managing cash flow, long term forecasting and funding relationships for the group. as a member of the board, i am also responsible for shaping and driving the future strategy of the Vets4pets group. What is your employment background? after graduating, i began my working life as a marketing trainee with British Steel, but quickly decided that i wanted to be an accountant instead. i spent several years working in the audit department of ernst & Young before moving to Vodafone as an internal auditor. in 2004, my locally-born husband and i moved to Guernsey, i joined Vets4pets as a management accountant and haven’t looked back. Hard work and determination, together with a little luck along the way, have seen me progress steadily through the company, performing a variety of roles in the finance department before being appointed finance director in 2009. 44 | CONTACT | OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2010 | www.guernseychamber.com Is there such a thing as a typical day in your current position? there is definitely no such thing as a typical day for me, but that’s the reason why i love my job! i start early, about 7.30am, and i can almost always guarantee that my plans for the day have completely changed by 9am. last Friday, for example, i started the day working on cash flow and completing tax returns, but ended up spending most of the day financially appraising an acquisition opportunity that was presented to the company the day before. How does Vets4Pets differ from other similar businesses? in our industry, we are the only truly national branded veterinary network of joint venture partnerships which has held true to these business principles. this is extremely important for both our vet partners and our customers. Why? Because our customers’ primary concern is for the health and happiness of their pets, and our business model enables our vet partners to focus completely on what they are best at: delivering the best clinical and medical treatment possible to keep our customers’ pets healthy and happy. together with the back-up of an expert business support network they can deliver this high quality service consistently, efficiently and at affordable prices for all. Why is Guernsey a good HQ for the business? to be honest, operating the support centre from Guernsey isn’t without its challenges, but on the whole it works for us. the key to our success lies in the people we recruit and retain in our team, and in finance, in particular, we’re very lucky that the success of the finance industry on the island means that we have access to a labour pool of experienced individuals. Do you have global involvement? right now we’re concentrating on building our brand in our core market in the UK and we’re really pleased to be opening our first practices in Northern ireland and Scotland this year. there is definitely scope for global expansion though and we’re currently investigating opportunities in France and Germany. We’ve also had interest from as far afield as Japan, so it’s definitely a case of watch this space! How has the business changed over the last five years? the Vets4pets of today is unrecognisable from the company i joined in 2004. i was the first employee to be recruited at the offices in St Martin’s. Before that the company had been operating from the basement at the home of our managing director peter Watson. over the last five years, we’ve more than doubled the number of practices in the group and have invested heavily in systems and processes to build a solid platform for future expansion. in terms of employees, back in 2005 we had 10 members of staff in Guernsey with five working in the UK. today we employ more than 30 here in Guernsey and a further 20 in the UK (although if you include our practice staff the figure is closer to 500). What does the future hold for Vets4Pets? Vets4pets is a really exciting place to be at the moment. We’re ramping up our expansion and have a five year plan that will see us more than double the size of the group – we’re aiming for at least 130 practices in the UK within the next five years. Such fantastic growth will present a wealth of opportunities within the Guernsey support centre; the finance team alone will need to more than double in size to support all the new practices coming on board. and of course that’s just our core UK business. there’s a wealth of opportunity to take the joint venture partner model to europe (and beyond) and we’re always evaluating complimentary business opportunities within the veterinary industry to continue to support and grow the Vets4pets brand.
Attractive fixed term savings. Sterling only: minimum deposit of £10,000. Annual or monthly interest options available. 3 month – 5 year terms available. Rates vary dependent on chosen term. Early withdrawal fees apply, minimum £30. Terms and Conditions apply. Rates of Interest are subject to change but the rate quoted is correct as at 11th October 2010. If early repayment is requested the stated interest will not be achieved. For further information on any of our products and rates, please call Leanne or Nathan, in our customer services team on 01481 711 102 or visit www.clydesdalebankinternational.com gross/AER* if held for a full 5 year term. Full details of our Terms and Conditions, current interest rates and information on all Clydesdale Bank International products are available on request. *AER stands for Annual Equivalent Rate and illustrates what the interest rate would be if interest was paid and compounded once each year. Clydesdale Bank International is a trading name of Clydesdale Bank PLC. Clydesdale Bank PLC, Registered in Scotland (No. SC001111). Registered Offi ce: 30 St. Vincent Place, Glasgow G1 2HL. The Guernsey Branch of Clydesdale Bank PLC is licensed by the Guernsey Financial Services Commission as a deposit-taking business, under the Banking Supervision (Bailiwick of Guernsey) Law, 1994, as amended. There is currently no Financial Services Ombudsman Scheme operational in Guernsey. Telephone calls are recorded. Clydesdale Bank International is a participant in the Guernsey Banking Deposit Compensation Scheme. The Scheme offers protection for ‘qualifying deposits’ up to £50,000, subject to certain limitations. The maximum total amount of compensation is capped at £100,000,000 in any 5 year period. Full details are available on the Scheme’s website www.dcs.gg or on request. Deposits with Clydesdale Bank International are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme established in the UK under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, nor are deposits covered by any equivalent scheme in any other jurisdiction. Principal place of Business in Guernsey: Clydesdale House, North Clifton, St Peter Port, Guernsey, GY1 1JR. Telephone: +44 (0) 1481 711102. Fax: +44 (0) 1481 723663
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