Pets at Home’s veterinary arm, Vets for Pets, is now generating more profit than its retail stores, the company’s preliminary results have revealed.
In the 52 weeks to March 27 2025, pre-tax profit at the vet group rose 23.3% to £75.9m while retail profits fell 16.6% to £72.9m. Sales through retail declined by 1.8% during the year to £1.31bn, while revenue at the veterinary arm grew 13% to £655m. Total group revenue increased by 2.7%, with underlying pre-tax profit for the group as a whole up slightly at £133m, compared to £132m last year.
Pets Club loyalty scheme members grew 5% to 8.2m, while subscription revenues grew by 30%, with 13% of group revenue now generated via subscriptions. The retailer’s recently-launched in-store subscription scheme has generated more than 1,000 sign-ups a day, the company reports, with more than 90% of new sign-ups opting for click & collect.
During the year, Pets at Home opened four new retail stores and refurbished 32 more, including four in a new trial format. Three new joint venture (JV) vet practices opened during the period, with a further 15 extended. During the next financial year, the company plans to open at least 10 new JV practices alongside 15 extensions. Overall, the retail currently operates 459 pet care centres, 343 grooming salons, 396 JV vet practices and 52 company-managed vet practices.
The group is currently developing a “capital-light” Pets at Home insurance proposition and has recruited a team to deliver it to the marketplace. The company has completed £125m in share buybacks over the past three years, reducing the shares in issue by around 8%, and plans a further £25m buyback in the current financial year. The board has recommended a final dividend of 8.3p per share, taking the total dividend for the year to 13p.
Chief executive officer Lyssa McGowan said: “The past two years have seen a profound transformation at Pets at Home. We have moved from a business with a strong presence in pet retail and vets, to a true pet care platform.
“We now have a platform that is fit for the future and capable of delivering sustained outperformance and market share gains through delighting consumers and increasingly fulfilling all of their pet care needs. During this period of transformation, we have completely re-platformed our digital infrastructure, built new capabilities around our data, brand and marketing, and simplified our distribution network to a single distribution centre fulfilling stores, online and subscriptions, and we have achieved this against the backdrop of a normalising pet care market and low consumer confidence.
“In FY25, we also saw another outstanding year of growth in our vets business, fuelled by the commitment and expertise of our partners, supported by our best-in-class scale services, platform benefits and industry knowhow. Our practices significantly outperformed a more subdued industry backdrop and delivered this progress despite the ongoing uncertainty of the CMA investigation – further demonstration of the power of our unique joint venture model.”
She added: “I am tremendously proud of our colleagues and partners for navigating this challenging but critical period which leaves us in a position to look to the future with confidence. While FY26 comes with its own challenges as we digest externally imposed cost headwinds and heightened macro uncertainty, our objective is clear – to deliver outperformance against our underlying markets, across our business.”
