Over the weekend, I asked a couple of dentist friends about how easy it is for a dental practice to increase profit by 16% when the revenue line is flat.
These dentists are experienced dentists who are against the corporatisation of the dental industry and have less than favourable views of the consolidators such as ONT, Pacific Smiles and Dental Corp.
I showed them ONT's latest P&L statement and they had a quick glance through.
Looking at the drop in the Employee Expenses line, they are guessing that ONT probably recruited more new graduates and replaced the more experienced but more expensive older dentists.
They believe that if this is indeed the case, in the short term, it will help the bottom line, but in the long term, it can't be good for the company because the company will lose the personal connections that the older dentists have with the clients, i.e. relationships that have been built over many number of years.
Cheers
ONT Price at posting:
$7.10 Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held