Simple ratio comparisons may help. From CVS’s interim income statements, administrative expenses as a percentage of revenue have crept up only slightly, from 7.5pc to 8pc. But that conveys good overall financial controls, as you might expect after the chief financial officer became chief executive.

That he has a financial background originally in banking, with no veterinary experience before joining CVS in 2018, has been good for shareholders since then. But it leaves me uneasy when a regulator questions if corporate interests now dominate pet care.

Vet groups had hoped to avert an investigation by proposing a package of remedies, but implicitly the CMA does not consider them enough. The watchdog might decide to cap prescription prices, or require business disposals to reduce concentration.

That could result in a status-change for CVS with a higher portion of earnings paid out as dividends if acquisitions have to slow, it might be forced to limit takeovers to Australia. Such a process might disrupt the shares as growth investors sell and the yield has to be priced high enough to tempt income-seekers.

In its favour, CVS is a well-established business, the kind to buy into for inheritance tax relief via Aim. This ought to lend support but given an 18-month timeline with this investigation I suspect some shareholders could yet cut losses.

H&T Group shows regulatory challenges can be addressed

This company exemplifies why my caution could be overdone, although the CMA might do a more thorough job with vets than the Financial Conduct Authority’s review of pawnbroking from September 2018.

Back then, the Aim-quoted shares of H&T Group – which owns Harvey & Thompson, the UK’s largest pawnbroker – fell from over 300p to 250p by that November. Adjusting for the disruption of Covid lockdowns, its chart has broadly been upwards since (see below)