Selling Your Veterinary Practice to Lovet: A Vet’s 2026 Guide

Key takeaways

• Lovet Pet Health Care is the veterinary brand of The Aspen Group (TAG) — a multi-brand retail healthcare organization backed by Ares Management, Leonard Green & Partners, American Securities, and AustralianSuper per public disclosures. Lovet is NOT a standalone veterinary-focused PE platform.
• The history matters: Lovet was originally founded in 1984 as AZPetVet in Phoenix, acquired by TAG in August 2022, and rebranded under the Lovet name in January 2025 when it launched nationally. As of late 2025, Lovet operates 28 locations in Arizona, Illinois, and Michigan.
• Lovet’s growth model is primarily de novo — building new hospitals from scratch rather than acquiring established independent practices. Sellers should understand this distinction: Lovet’s active acquisition track record for independently owned practices is more limited in the public record than larger traditional consolidators.
• Brand integration is a real factor. Per Lovet company materials, the entire AZPetVet network was rebranded under Lovet in 2025. Owners who received a direct Lovet outreach should understand that the brand-preservation question is different here than at consolidators who publicly emphasize local-brand retention.
• A single Lovet offer is still a single offer. Any direct approach from Lovet reflects what they perceive as their leverage in a one-on-one conversation. The only way to know whether that offer is the best available number for your practice is to run a structured competitive process — our Elite Selling System — that puts Lovet’s bid next to bids from other qualified buyers, simultaneously, under real competitive pressure.

When a vet calls me about a Lovet conversation, the questions are usually different from the ones I hear about NVA or VetCor. With the traditional PE-backed consolidators, the owner has at least heard of the buyer — often from a peer who went through a sale with them years ago.

With Lovet, the question is often more basic: “Who actually are these people, and what do they want with my practice?”

That’s a fair question. And the answer is a little more layered than it is for a pure-play veterinary consolidator.

Lovet is not primarily a practice acquisition machine in the traditional sense. It’s the veterinary arm of The Aspen Group — a large multi-brand retail healthcare support organization that also runs Aspen Dental, ClearChoice, WellNow Urgent Care, and Chapter Aesthetic Studio.

Lovet’s expansion to date has been mostly de novo: new hospitals built in new markets, branded under the Lovet name from day one. That’s a different kind of buyer than a consolidator whose core model is identifying established independently-owned practices, buying them, and integrating them into a network.

What follows is the picture I’d walk any vet through over dinner. Who Lovet is, what the ownership structure looks like, how their model compares to the broader veterinary buyer pool, what selling your practice to Lovet in 2026 actually means — and how to think about any offer from them.

Selling your veterinary practice to Lovet: what you actually need to know in 2026

Lovet Pet Health Care is the veterinary brand under The Aspen Group’s multi-brand healthcare umbrella. The company traces its roots to AZPetVet, which was founded in 1984 and operated as a network of companion-animal general practice hospitals across the greater Phoenix area for four decades. The Aspen Group (TAG) acquired AZPetVet in August 2022 per the TAG acquisition announcement, and in January 2025, the entire network was rebranded under the Lovet name when TAG launched its first national expansion location — a flagship hospital in Chicago’s Fulton Market neighborhood.

As of late 2025, Lovet operates 28 locations across 3 states — Arizona (23 hospitals), Illinois (Chicago), and Michigan (4 hospitals in Grand Rapids) per Lovet press releases. In 2025 alone, Lovet veterinarians cared for more than 367,000 pets per TAG’s 2025 annual results announcement.

TAG itself is headquartered in Chicago and operates more than 1,400 health and wellness locations across 46 states through its five brands per TAG company disclosures. TAG’s PE sponsors — Ares Management (NYSE: ARES), Leonard Green & Partners, and American Securities, alongside institutional investor AustralianSuper — have been investors in TAG over multiple rounds per public ownership disclosures from Leonard Green & Partners and PE Hub.

That ownership structure is worth understanding clearly. When you sell to Lovet, you’re entering a network whose parent company’s PE backers have significant exposure across dental, urgent care, aesthetics, and veterinary medicine simultaneously.

That’s structurally different from a veterinary-focused consolidator whose entire PE thesis is built around vet practice operations.

How Lovet’s growth model compares to traditional veterinary consolidators in 2026

The distinction that matters most for a selling vet is how Lovet grows. Traditional PE-backed veterinary consolidators — NVA, VetCor, PetVet Care Centers, AmeriVet, Thrive Pet Healthcare — grow primarily through acquiring established independent practices. Their teams reach out to practice owners, run a due-diligence process, and buy existing patient bases, established teams, and proven financials.

Lovet’s expansion model as of 2025-2026 is primarily de novo — meaning new hospitals built from scratch in markets where TAG’s retail healthcare model identifies consumer demand. The Chicago flagship opened in a new facility at 802 West Fulton Market.

The Grand Rapids locations opened across four new buildings in 2025 per Lovet press releases. Lovet is not primarily scanning for established independent practices to acquire; they’re building.

Buyer type	Primary growth mechanism	Brand approach	PE backing focus
Lovet (TAG)	De novo builds	Unified Lovet brand	Multi-category retail healthcare
NVA	Acquisitions of established independents	Local brand preservation common	Pure-play vet consolidation
VetCor	Acquisitions of established independents	Local brand preservation	Pure-play vet consolidation
PetVet Care Centers	Acquisitions of established independents	Varies by deal	Pure-play vet consolidation
AmeriVet	Partnership model + acquisitions	Local brand preservation common	Pure-play vet consolidation

This doesn’t mean Lovet will never pursue acquisitions of established practices — growing networks frequently evolve their acquisition strategy as they scale. But as of the time this was written, a seller approaching Lovet is dealing with a platform whose primary expansion mechanism is different from the traditional consolidator playbook.

What selling your practice to Lovet actually looks like in 2026

Because Lovet’s primary growth has been de novo, there is less of a publicly documented acquisition playbook to map against than there is for a buyer like VetCor or NVA that has been acquiring independent practices for decades. What I can tell you from the structure of the platform is what the experience is likely to involve.

The brand question. Per Lovet company materials, the entire AZPetVet network — 23 hospitals operated under the AZPetVet name for decades — was fully rebranded under the Lovet name in 2025. New expansion markets opened under the Lovet brand from day one.

This pattern suggests that practice identity post-acquisition would likely involve Lovet branding. If retaining your practice name, signage, and patient-facing identity under a recognizable local brand is important to you, that’s a specific negotiation point to address explicitly and in writing before any letter of intent is signed. The specific brand-handling terms for any acquired practice are set in the definitive purchase agreement and are negotiated case by case.

The model fit question. Lovet’s positioning is consumer-accessible general practice — affordable care, flexible payment options through Lovet Pay, 7-day availability, same-day appointments, and free exam pilots per Lovet company materials. If your practice has been built around a concierge experience, a deeply loyal long-term client base, premium specialty services, or a rural community anchor identity, the Lovet model’s retail healthcare orientation is worth weighing carefully.

The integration question. Joining a multi-brand platform means your practice plugs into a support infrastructure that spans dental, urgent care, and veterinary. TAG’s scale — 1,400-plus locations in 46 states — brings real operational resource depth.

What it also means is that the people making decisions about your practice’s operations and strategic direction post-close are ultimately accountable to a multi-category platform, not a vet-focused investor whose entire portfolio is veterinary practices.

None of these are dealbreakers, and none are reasons to dismiss a Lovet approach without serious consideration. They’re the specific questions I’d push any owner to explore — with Lovet’s deal team directly, and with legal counsel — before signing anything.

How the 2026 veterinary M&A market shapes any Lovet conversation

The broader US veterinary M&A market provides important context for evaluating any offer, from any buyer. Per Octus’s 2025 sector research, multiples for typical private veterinary general practices were lingering in the mid- to high single digits in single-bidder contexts through the first part of 2025. Competitive outcomes for strong multi-doctor general practices in the $2 million-plus revenue range tend to reach meaningfully higher territory across the major buyer pool when sellers run a properly structured competitive process, per industry M&A commentary.

The gap between a direct single-bidder offer and a competitive-process outcome consistently runs into real money — on any meaningful practice, the arithmetic on the difference is significant. That dynamic does not change based on which buyer is making the direct approach.

I’ve watched this play out consistently enough to stop calling it a pattern and start calling it a rule. A single buyer facing no visible competition has no structural reason to front their best cash percentage, their tightest earnout protections, or their most explicit post-close clinical autonomy language in the first conversation.

That’s not a criticism of any buyer — it’s how any rational acquirer allocates offer quality. Competition is what changes the calculation.

That’s true of Lovet. It’s true of every major buyer in this market.

If you want to understand what a practice like yours would actually clear in 2026 — with Lovet as one of the bidders in a curated group — the competitive valuation process we use is the only reliable way to get that number.

How selling to Lovet compares to selling to a pure-play vet consolidator

If you’ve received an approach from Lovet and are wondering how it stacks up against what the traditional veterinary consolidator pool would offer, the comparison has several dimensions worth separating.

On price. Lovet’s specific price for any specific practice is not publicly enumerated, and the platform does not publish acquisition multiples or price ranges. The same is true of NVA, VetCor, and every other major buyer.

What drives price in any process is competitive pressure — not the identity of the buyer. A Lovet offer in a well-run competitive process will reflect Lovet’s genuine appetite for your practice.

A Lovet offer in a one-on-one direct conversation will reflect their leverage in that conversation.

On integration depth. Established vet-focused PE groups have refined integration playbooks built specifically for veterinary operations — credentialing, clinical protocol standardization, continuing education, and vendor relationships that are all vet-specific. TAG’s multi-brand infrastructure is formidable in scale, but the vet-specific depth of that infrastructure is less established in the public record than a platform like VetCor‘s twenty-plus-year veterinary integration track record.

On brand. Traditional consolidators like NVA, VetCor, and AmeriVet publicly emphasize local brand preservation in their company materials. Lovet’s public track record on this point is the 2025 rebrand of the entire AZPetVet network to the Lovet name.

That’s a meaningful data point for any owner who built their practice’s equity in part through a locally recognized name.

On exit visibility. TAG has been through multiple investment cycles across its dental and healthcare brands, which means the platform has documented liquidity history behind it. That matters if any retained equity or rollover component is part of the deal structure — though Lovet’s specific stance on partnership versus 100-percent acquisition structures for independent practice acquisitions is not publicly enumerated.

Our PE pricing and deal structure guide covers the broader buyer pool’s approach to these structures in detail.

None of these comparative points make Lovet a better or worse buyer in the abstract. They make Lovet a specific kind of buyer — with a specific model, a specific ownership structure, and a specific track record — that belongs on the table in a competitive process alongside the buyers whose models differ.

The comparison only becomes real when the bids are in front of you simultaneously.

What to do if you’ve received a Lovet approach

Most of the conversations I have with vets who’ve received a Lovet outreach start from the same place: the owner isn’t sure whether this is a serious buyer worth engaging, or whether the direct-approach playbook works the same way for a newer entrant like Lovet as it does for a long-established consolidator.

Both questions are the wrong framing. Lovet backed by TAG backed by Ares, Leonard Green, and American Securities is not a casual buyer.

They have the institutional infrastructure and investor backing to execute on acquisitions when the practice fits their model. And the direct-approach playbook works the same way for every serious buyer: a direct offer reflects the leverage of a one-on-one conversation, full stop.

Here’s what I’d actually recommend, in the same order I’d give it to a vet sitting across from me at dinner.

First, do not engage on price in the first conversation. A Lovet outreach that opens with an indication of value — a range, a rough multiple, a directional number — is calibrated to anchor you before you know what the competitive landscape looks like. Note it.

Don’t react to it. Don’t negotiate against it.

Second, get your practice’s real value picture before any negotiation begins. That means understanding your normalized EBITDA — what your practice earns in pure operating profit after stripping out personal expenses you run through the practice (owner comp above market, personal vehicles, family members on payroll above market rate) — and what the current competitive-process outcomes look like for practices in your revenue range. Our practice valuation guide and our PE pricing guide cover both in depth.

Third, run a process before signing anything. The moment you sign a letter of intent — a preliminary agreement on price and exclusivity terms — you’ve typically granted exclusivity to that buyer for 60 to 90 days. That window is when your leverage disappears.

Everything that moves the number happens before the LOI, not after.

Our overview of the competitive sale process explains the mechanics. The short version: we run our Elite Selling System — we hand-select and vet every buyer who gets to bid on your practice, the way a doorman with a velvet rope lets in only the right people, then run a private competitive bidding window inside that vetted group.

If Lovet fits your practice’s profile and is serious about acquiring in your market, they can compete. If the result is that a traditional vet-focused consolidator bids higher or offers better terms on the dimensions you care most about, you have that visible comparison before you sign anything.

You only get to sell your life’s work once. The number you clear is determined by who’s at the table and whether they’re competing.

Get a Free Practice Value Estimate →

If you’ve received an approach from Lovet or any other buyer, the first step is understanding what your practice is genuinely worth before any offer is evaluated. We provide a free, no-obligation practice value estimate — a clear picture of your normalized EBITDA, how the current buyer pool values practices in your revenue range, and what a competitive process would likely produce for your specific profile.

Transitions Elite works on a success-based engagement model. No upfront fees.

We’re compensated only when a deal closes, only out of the value created above what the seller would have realized in a direct single-bidder transaction. If we can’t build a competitive process that outperforms your direct option, we’ll tell you plainly.

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Frequently asked questions about selling your veterinary practice to Lovet

What is Lovet Pet Health Care?

Lovet Pet Health Care is the veterinary brand of The Aspen Group (TAG), a multi-brand retail healthcare support organization. Originally founded in 1984 as AZPetVet in Phoenix, Arizona, the platform was acquired by TAG in August 2022 and rebranded as Lovet in January 2025.

As of late 2025, Lovet operates 28 locations across Arizona, Illinois, and Michigan. TAG is backed by Ares Management, Leonard Green & Partners, American Securities, and AustralianSuper per public ownership disclosures.

Who owns Lovet Pet Health Care in 2026?

Lovet Pet Health Care is owned by The Aspen Group (TAG), headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. TAG is backed by private equity firms Ares Management (NYSE: ARES), Leonard Green & Partners, and American Securities, along with institutional investor AustralianSuper per public ownership disclosures.

TAG operates over 1,400 health and wellness locations across 46 states through five brands: Aspen Dental, ClearChoice, WellNow Urgent Care, Chapter Aesthetic Studio, and Lovet Pet Health Care.

Does Lovet acquire existing independent veterinary practices?

Lovet’s growth model as of 2025-2026 is primarily de novo — building new hospitals from scratch rather than acquiring established independent practices. Lovet’s recent expansion into Michigan and Chicago involved new facility builds, not the purchase of existing independent practices.

Owners of established independent practices exploring a sale should understand this distinction: Lovet’s active acquisition appetite for independent GP practices is less established in the public record than that of traditional consolidators like NVA, VetCor, or PetVet Care Centers.

What kind of veterinary practices does Lovet target?

Lovet’s stated focus is accessible, affordable companion-animal general practice — urgent and preventive care with high-volume, consumer-accessible positioning. Per Lovet company materials, their model emphasizes convenience features including 7-day availability, same-day appointments, and flexible payment plans.

The platform appears most interested in general practice companion-animal medicine in metropolitan markets where its retail healthcare model applies. Practices with established patient bases in cities where Lovet is building regional density may be a better fit than rural or referral-heavy practices.

How does selling to Lovet differ from selling to a traditional PE-backed vet group?

Lovet’s parent, TAG, is a multi-brand retail healthcare support organization rather than a pure-play veterinary consolidator. This means a seller entering the Lovet network joins a platform whose core identity and PE sponsor’s expertise span dental, urgent care, aesthetics, and veterinary services.

Traditional PE-backed vet-focused groups like NVA, VetCor, or PetVet have veterinary M&A and operations as their singular focus. Sellers should evaluate how that structural difference affects clinical autonomy, integration expectations, and the long-term future of their practice post-close.

What does Lovet rebrand acquired practices to?

Based on Lovet company materials, the AZPetVet network of 23 hospitals was fully rebranded under the Lovet name in January 2025. Lovet’s expansion into Chicago and Michigan introduced new facilities under the unified Lovet brand.

This suggests that practices entering the Lovet network may be expected to rebrand under the Lovet identity. The specific brand-handling terms for any acquired practice would be set in the definitive purchase agreement and negotiated case by case.

How do I evaluate a Lovet offer for my veterinary practice?

Any offer from Lovet — like any direct offer from any single buyer — should be evaluated in the context of what the same practice would generate through a structured competitive process. A Lovet offer in isolation reflects the leverage of a single-bidder conversation.

Running a competitive process that includes Lovet alongside other qualified buyers allows you to see what Lovet would bid when they know other serious buyers are underwriting the same practice in parallel. That comparison is the only reliable way to know whether the Lovet offer represents full value for your life’s work.

Is Lovet a good buyer for my veterinary practice in 2026?

Whether Lovet is the right buyer depends entirely on your practice’s profile, your goals post-close, and whether the Lovet model aligns with how you built your practice. For high-volume urban GP practices with a consumer-accessibility angle, Lovet’s retail healthcare model may fit well.

For practices with strong independent identity and owners who want to remain clinically autonomous under a vet-focused platform, a traditional PE-backed vet consolidator may be a different kind of fit. The way to answer the question definitively is to run a competitive process that puts Lovet’s offer on the table alongside offers from other qualified buyers, so the comparison is visible.

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Sources

Industry M&A research and valuation data

1. Octus. “Private-Credit Exposure to Veterinary Rollups Shows Growing Dispersion; VSOs Under Increasing Pressure.” 2025. octus.com
2. Capstone Partners. Pet Sector M&A Update, April 2026. capstonepartners.com
3. Marti Law Group. “Veterinary Practice M&A Trends in 2025.” martilawgroup.com

Specific buyer corporate press releases and company materials

4. Lovet Pet Health Care. “About Us.” lovet.com. lovet.com/about
5. Lovet Pet Health Care. “Lovet Pet Health Care Launches Flagship Veterinary Hospital in Chicago, Rebrands AZPetVet Locations in Greater Phoenix Area Under Same Name.” PR Newswire, January 15, 2025. prnewswire.com
6. Lovet Pet Health Care. “Lovet Pet Health Care Expands Grand Rapids Footprint with Three New Veterinary Hospitals.” PR Newswire, November 20, 2025. prnewswire.com
7. Lovet Pet Health Care. “Lovet Pet Health Care Wins Two VETTY Awards for Excellence in Animal Health Care Marketing.” PR Newswire, January 22, 2026. prnewswire.com
8. The Aspen Group. “TAG Invests in the Future of Retail Healthcare, Reporting Strong 2025 Results.” PR Newswire, March 10, 2026. prnewswire.com
9. The Aspen Group. “TAG – The Aspen Group to Acquire AZPetVet.” TAG Newsroom, August 26, 2022. pehub.com

Public company disclosures and PE filings

10. Leonard Green & Partners. “Ares Management & Leonard Green Increase Ownership in Aspen Dental Management, Inc.” June 2017. leonardgreen.com
11. Lovet Pet Health Care. “Introducing Lovet: Our Approach to Care, Services, & Vision.” lovet.com Blog. lovet.com