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PE Deal Tracker Update: Alan Whitman Plants a Flag in the Private Equity Landscape
Tracker surges into 2026 with more than 200 transactions.
In January alone, dozens of private-equity-backed deals surfaced — more than a quarter of all 12 months last year. And it hasn’t slowed down yet.
By CPA Trendlines Research
Cornerstone Reports
Former Baker Tilly CEO Alan Whitman is returning to the center of accounting’s private equity vortex with a new mandate and a new sponsor, taking the helm of a newly capitalized triple-threat CPA firm, insurance agency, and transaction consultancy.
MORE Alan Whitman: Breaking the Mold with PE Backing | Holistic Guide | Whitman: Build Culture on ‘Progress,’ Not Change |Moss Adams-Baker Tilly Merger: Bigger Isn’t Better. Better Is Better. | Rory Henry and The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management | Cornerstone Reports | Private Equity
In the new edition of the CPA Trendlines PE Deal Tracker™, Madison Dearborn Partners, the Chicago-based private equity firm, founded in 1992 and managing more than $28 billion in assets, is backing the combination of Nichols Cauley, a Georgia-based CPA firm, with Partners Risk Services and JGH Consulting in a three-entity formation designed not as a tuck-in acquisition but as an integrated advisory foundation from inception.
At Nichols, an eight-office regional leader, Whitman may be inventing more than the next generation of CPA firms. It could be a new breed. “It’s going to be a lot of fun scaling a new product,” Whitman tells CPA Trendlines’ Rory Henry in the latest episode of The Holitic Guide to Wealth Management. “It’s kind of a new category in the space.”
The CPA PE Playbook: Private Equity 2026 Outlook & Strategy Guide
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The Definitive Guide to Private Equity’s Transformation of the CPA Profession
Exclusively for PRO Members Only, here
Not yet a PRO Member? Go PRO here
By CPA Trendlines Research
The accounting profession is changing faster than at any time in its modern history—and private equity is driving the shift. More than $30 billion in new capital has entered CPA firms since 2020, igniting a powerful wave of consolidation, modernization, and strategic reinvention. Firms that once relied on incremental growth and traditional partnership structures are now operating as high-performance platforms built for scale, technology adoption, and national reach.
The CPA PE Playbook is the most comprehensive analysis available today on this historic transformation.
If you want to know where the profession is heading, how PE-backed firms are competing, and what it will take to thrive in the next decade, this is the report you need.
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The Six Stages of 401(k) Audits
Keep the process from dragging on.
By Jody Grunden
Building the Virtual CFO Firm in the Cloud
As with any service area, it’s important to have a solid process in place. Without one, it can be a little bit like the Wild West! The 401(k) audit process involves six stages, which are typically completed within four to eight weeks.
MORE by Jody Grunden
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.
Once a prospective client confirms they want Summit to complete their audit, we send them the engagement letter and the questionnaires along with the governance planning memo that we’re required to give them.
READ MORE →
Four Misconceptions about Annuities and Insurance
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David Lau is the founder and CEO of DPL Financial Partners, a privately held financial services firm that specializes in the development and distribution of low-cost, commission-free insurance and annuity products, for registered investment advisors (RIAs) and individual investors. |
Perceptions are changing … and rightfully so.
By David Lau, founder and CEO of DPL Financial Partners, and
Ross McGoodwin, regional vice president at DPL Financial Partners
The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management
After the stock market swooned (-22% S&P 500) and the majority of bond indices suffered double-digit losses in 2022, protection and income solutions are at the forefront of planning discussions. Instead of these principal protection and income solutions being offered only by commission-based agents, however, now they can be offered by fiduciaries for planning discussions and appropriate implementation.
MORE Rory Henry and The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.
According to LIMRA (Life Insurance Marketing and Research Association), retail annuity sales in 2022 shattered the annual sales records set during the global financial crisis of 2008. For instance, fixed-rate deferred annuities totaled $113 billion, more than double the sales in 2021, LIMRA reported. CD alternatives, such as fixed-rate deferred annuities, provide security and tax-deferred growth. I have found this helps clients guarantee upside return, something they are actively seeking after one of the worst years in combined equity and bond performance since World War II. I’ve also found that fee-only options will provide higher rates compared to traditional, commission-based solutions.
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Five Motivation Tips for Tax Season
Look to history for some wisdom.
By Sandi Leyva
The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms
Here are a few of the best lessons I’ve received from the masters.
MORE by Sandi Leyva
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.
Although tried and true, their stories and hardships keep me energized, upbeat and thinking bigger. READ MORE →
Bissett Bullet: Put It In Writing
Today’s Bissett Bullet: “Confirming the details of your meeting with a prospective client after a meeting is set up is not a formality. It is a cancellation prevention exercise.”
By Martin Bissett
This is a small gesture but is still the standout way to ensure that you are in their schedule, in their calendar, in their diary for this meeting. It shows maturity, it shows seriousness, it shows that you are “on the ball.” Always confirm in writing after setting up a meeting because that is the most proven cancellation prevention exercise yet. Make it official.
Today’s To-Do:
Develop a very simple confirmation letter template that you can send out easily or that someone can send out on your behalf when each new prospective meeting is confirmed in your diary.
See more Bissett Bullets here
Why the Next Generation May Be Accounting’s Greatest Competitive Advantage | SLC
Young professionals bring adaptability and media literacy that firms need in an AI-driven era.
Sponsored by The Balanced Millionaire: The Advisor Edition by Dr. Jackie Meyer | See Today’s Special Offer
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Student-Led Conversations
With Arpan Grewal
Center for Accounting Transformation
Student-Led Conversations opens its second season with a conversation that reflects a larger shift underway in the accounting profession: rapid technology change, accelerating adoption of artificial intelligence tools, and an increasing push to bring younger voices into the discussion.
Arpan Grewal, a Center for Accounting Transformation intern and business student in Indiana, welcomes Liz Mason, CPA, CEO of High Rock Accounting, as the first guest of Season 2. Grewal describes the discussion as “full circle,” noting Mason is among the first professionals she interviewed when Student-Led Conversations launched last year.
MORE Accounting ARC: Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting | Savage: Using Your License as a Megaphone | Baker: Interpreting Pricing Psychology | Don’t Get Fired by Your Own Automation | What Amazon Doesn’t Tell You | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC | Free Speech Is a Right; Respect Is a Responsibility | Cash Bags, Casinos & Audits: How First Jobs Shape Us | Gen Z Redefines Careers | Bootleggers, Baptitsts & CPAs: Rethinking Licensure
Mason, a co-host of Accounting ARC, argues the profession is no longer talking about incremental change. It is, she says, in the early stages of something much larger.
The word that continues to surface for her is “revolution.”