I bought in shortly after they listed and averaged down at 82c....

I bought in shortly after they listed and averaged down at 82c. Bugger! Still a good story. CEO is impressive, all business but knowledgable as well as commercial. I agree they have been poor at communicating. The first set of results got them in the brown stuff with the instos because the format (pro forma) looked ugly but underlying was okay. They are putting the various practices on the same systems and that has involved more work than they were expecting. Senior vets have been taken away from their jobs to work with the various practices and this has dragged on. They thought they could cover the increased expense as revenues were tracking well. Earnings are a bit seasonal with extra work required in dairy and feedlots with the onset of winter. This year the warm weather lasted longer than usual hence the last update with a range of earnings. Now the instos really hate them. I'm told they are conscious of their poor record of communicating and are at least trying to address it. May try to do pre-sales next year to cover some of the vagaries of the weather.

It is fair to question the quality of the earnings. On the plus side the feedlots business has benefited from the acquisition, giving more flexibility, financial muscle and compliance framework. Generates a lot of saleable data. The original business was all things pig, including semen. The listing gave them the funding to expand into beef, dairy, horses and chickens. Not much involved with domestic pets. Go to NVL for them. NVL do very little in the way of retailing but AHX generate a lot of cash from the retail side. Specialist lines and they're good at it.

I like AHX but have enough. When they get their systems in place and integrated they can concentrate more on the main game. Striking how they have gone in the opposite direction to NVL listed around the same time. Once you put the instos offside that is what happens. I should have bought more NVL instead - not a bad price after the placement. Haven't followed Greencross at all (GXL). Neither NVL or GXL compete in the rural space as far as I am aware.

As always do your own research but hopefully that will give you a start. Not on my HC watchlist so excuse me if I don't get back to you. Good luck.