LONDON (Alliance News) - Premier Veterinary Group PLC shares rose on Thursday as it officially launched its expansion into the US after appointing two regional sales managers to help springboard the company's plan to capture a potentially huge market in the country.
Premier Veterinary shares were up 8.9% to 131.50 pence per share on Thursday morning.
The company restructured the business late last year by moving away from physically operating veterinary clinics to focus on its subsidiary, Premier Vet Alliance Ltd, which provides services to third-party practices.
Premier Vet Alliance provides services to veterinary clinics, including the administration of a preventative healthcare program for pets branded "Pet Care Plan", and the operation of a buying group which offers enhanced discounts to member practices.
Pet Care Plan was launched back in 2011 and has proven successful enough for the company to make it the company's main focus and long-term value driver.
The amount of plans the company has under the Pet Care Plan has been steadily rising as the company deployed and expanded into other countries such as Denmark, Ireland and the Netherlands. But now Premier Veterinary has its eyes on the potentially huge US market.
Premier Veterinary said the available market for preventative healthcare programmes for pets across the US is estimated at around 70.0 million dogs and 74.0 million cats, citing numbers from the US Pet Ownership & Demographics Sourcebook 2012.
Premier Veterinary said the largest operator within the market, and therefore its biggest competitor, has around 1.0 million pets under such programmes.
The "controlled expansion" into the US has been launched after the company appointed two regional sales directors to work out of Atlanta, Georgia and Charlotte, North Carolina, to work under Premier Vet Alliance. Two training staff also have been appointed.
Craig Fraser joins the company from DVM Resources/Animal Healthcare International whilst Jennifer Scarberry has joined from her role at Antech Diagnostics. Both of them were regional sales managers prior to joining Premier Veterinary.
"Both executives have significant experience in veterinary product sales and following a recently completed training and induction period, they have already secured seven new hospital contracts for Pet Care Plan in Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina," said the company.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
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