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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
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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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Four Essentials for Email Campaigns
Plus six factors to consider.
By August Aquila
MAX: Maximize Productivity, Profitability and Client Retention
Build Exit Strategy into Your Business Strategy
Ten action steps to take NOW, not someday.
By Jackie Meyer
The Balanced Millionaire: Advisor Edition
Having gone through the process of selling clients and eventually an entire firm, I gathered some invaluable lessons. If you ever consider selling part or all of your practice, keep these in mind:
MORE by Jackie Meyer
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- Always Have a Retention Clause: If you sell clients or your firm, include a clause in the sale agreement that protects you if clients don’t stick around.
Employee Experience Not What It Seems
The years didn’t add up.
By Ed Mendlowitz
Call Me Before You Do Anything: The Art of Accounting
We hired Sam out of school and he worked for us for two and a half years and then we split up our firm. This was ages ago and Sy and I left our third partner to form our new firm on Jan. 1.
MORE by Ed Mendlowitz
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However, there is a valuable lesson here and I think it is worth sharing. It changed the way we hired staff.
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Use Tech to Make Employees Happier
Stop scouring for talent that doesn’t exist.
By Jody Padar
The Radical CPA
If you’ve posted a job for an accountant in the past few years, you know people are hard to come by. The number of responses you received was likely down if you were lucky enough to find any at all.
MORE by Jody Padar
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According to a recent AICPA Trends Report, the number of people graduating with a bachelor’s degree in accounting is down, and we’ve seen a steady decline since 2015. All this while half of U.S. CPA firms have increased the number of new graduates they want to hire. A lot of us are looking for staff that simply does not exist.
Thirteen Things to Ask in a Merger of Equals
How about an executive committee from both firms?
By Marc Rosenberg
CPA Firm Mergers: Your Complete Guide
Mergers of equals or firms close to equal (some call these sideways mergers) are much less common than mergers in which there is a clear survivor. But they do occur.
MORE by Marc Rosenberg
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Quite simply, there are two reasons mergers of equals are uncommon:
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