Henry Schein completes $40M Dutch acquisition

Henry Schein Inc., Long Island's largest publicly traded company, has completed its $40 million acquisition of a Dutch veterinary supply distributor.

The move deepens the Melville-based distributor's reach in Europe, giving it access to the animal-care market for pharmaceuticals, pet foods, small equipment and other products in The Netherlands and in Belgium. It also advances the company's goal of exceeding $10 billion in sales within the next few years.

“With the addition of AUV, our annual global animal health sales will be more than $2 billion,” Henry Schein chief executive Stanley M. Bergman (pictured) said in a statement Tuesday announcing the acquisition's closing.

Schein, a distributor of supplies for dental, medical and veterinary practices around the world, initially announced the acquisition in April.

AUV Veterinary Services had been the distribution division of the AUV Group, a privately held company based in Cuijk. It has 200 employees. In 2011, it reported having $270 million in sales and a customer base of about 2,000 veterinary practices.

Schein, with 14,000 employees, had $8.5 billion in sales for 2011. The company reported its best-ever quarterly profits this month, with a 5 percent jump in net income, to $80.8 million, for the first three months of 2012. Net sales rose nearly 8 percent. Global sales of dental products, the company's biggest unit, rose more than 5 percent. And the company’s sales of animal health products rose 15 percent.