Pets at Home recorded a 14% increase in its pre-tax profits driven by two years of "profound transformation" and strong growth in its veterinary business.

The pet specialist, which has stores in Gloucester, Cheltenham and Cirencester, saw its profits surge to £120.6m in the 12 months to March 27, up from £105.7m the year before.

This was driven by a strong performance in its Vets business, with pre-tax profits up 23% to £75.9m and sales up 13% to £655m.

However, sales slipped 1.8% in the retail business to £1.3bn and profits plunged 16% to £72.9m, which Pets at Home attributed to a period of subdued growth in the pet sector and "soft UK consumer backdrop".

Looking ahead, the retailer said it expects the current market conditions and subdued consumer backdrop to remain. As a result, it has forecast its group underlying pre-tax profit for the current year to fall in the range of £115m and 125m.

Lyssa McGowan, chief executive officer, said: "The past two years have seen a profound transformation at Pets at Home. We have moved from a business with a strong presence in pet retail and vets, to a true pet care platform. We now have a platform that is fit for the future and capable of delivering sustained outperformance and market share gains through delighting consumers and increasingly fulfilling all of their pet care needs.

"During this period of transformation, we have completely replatformed our digital infrastructure, built new capabilities around our data, brand & marketing, and simplified our distribution network to a single distribution centre fulfilling stores, online and subscriptions, and we have achieved this against the backdrop of a normalising pet care market and low consumer confidence.

"In FY25, we also saw another outstanding year of growth in our vets business, fuelled by the commitment and expertise of our partners, supported by our best-in-class scale services, platform benefits and industry knowhow.

"Our practices significantly outperformed a more subdued industry backdrop and delivered this progress despite the ongoing uncertainty of the CMA investigation - further demonstration of the power of our unique joint venture model.

"I am tremendously proud of our colleagues and partners for navigating this challenging but critical period which leaves us in a position to look to the future with confidence. 

"While FY26 comes with its own challenges as we digest externally imposed cost headwinds and heightened macro uncertainty, our objective is clear - to deliver outperformance against our underlying markets, across our business."