With $1.8 Billion Deal, Eide Bailly Set for Explosive Growth

Reverence Capital turns a regional powerhouse into a national growth engine.

By CPA Trendlines Research

Eide Bailly didn’t need private equity to roll up more than a dozen local CPA firms in the last two years.

But the Reverence Capital Partners takeover, which values Eide Bailly at about $1.8 billion, means the Fargo, N.D., CPA firm can shift into hyperdrive and take a shot at competing on a national stage. With about $840 million in billings, up from $780 million a year before, the deal prices Eide Bailly at about 2.1 times revenue.

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Less than two weeks before Eide Bailly’s deal, Chicago-based Crowe agreed to sell to KKR, famous for leveraged buyouts, for nearly $3 billion, at 2.2 times revenue.

The two deals mean that just over half of the top 30 firms are muscling up for expansion with outside capital. Only five of the firms between No. 6 Baker Tilly and No. 26 Sikich are left as independents. In the top 50, about half the firms are taking outside capital. At 100, it’s 29 firms. Overall, the CPA PE Deal Tracker^tm from CPA Trendlines Research counts more than 500 deals, most of them in the last three years.

In the top tiers of the accounting profession, the market has split into three clear, distinct philosophies: the PE-backed consolidators (like EisnerAmper or Baker Tilly), the ESOP pioneers (led by BDO), and the traditional independence holdouts (Forvis Mazars, CLA, Plante Moran, and Withum), who view partner-ownership as a major asset for long-term talent retention.

Platform strategies

With about 50 offices, more than 3,500 employees and 400 partners, Eide Bailly executives expect to double in size in the next three to four years. The Eide Bailly executive team remains in place, led by CEO Jeremy Hauk, a KPMG alum, and COO Andy Spillum, architect of Western expansion.

The equity-backed launch follows a couple of strategic years of buying practices, moving east, adding technology consulting, selling or shifting non-core lines and building the pieces of today’s platform. The firm was transforming itself into a PE platform in plain sight.

Eide Bailly’s targets have moved the firm into Seattle, Tennessee health care advisory, multiple Southern California markets, Phoenix, San Diego, Woodland Hills, Ohio, Illinois, North Carolina, Texas Salesforce consulting, Solana Beach, Edmonds and Norfolk, Va.

The largest visible addition was Apple Growth Partners, which became part of Eide Bailly in June 2024. The deal brought 24 partners and 125 staff, gave Eide Bailly its first office east of the Mississippi and was described as the second-largest acquisition in the firm’s history.

The 2025 additions showed the same pattern. Roycon added Salesforce consulting capacity, including Salesforce customization, Revenue Cloud and Field Service Lightning work. Volpe Brown deepened Eide Bailly in northeast Ohio and in service to McDonald’s franchise owner-operators. Hamilton Tharp added tax planning, trusts and estates, family office and accounting capacity in Solana Beach. Traner Smith added tax compliance and advisory capacity in Washington state. Wall, Einhorn & Chernitzer marked the firm’s first Virginia office and a formal East Coast arrival.

Platform in motion

The divestitures have been just as strategic. In November 2022, Net at Work acquired Eide Bailly’s Sage 100 and Sage 500 practice, moving more than 400 Sage clients and the former Sage account-management and consulting team to Net at Work. In December 2024, Sequoia Financial Group completed its acquisition of Eide Bailly’s wealth-management practice, adding 22 employees and $1.6 billion in assets. Eide Bailly took an equity stake in Sequoia and the parties framed the deal as a strategic partnership.

The plan looks less like a traditional CPA partnership gradually growing by local combination and more like a firm sorting its portfolio before taking capital. Eide Bailly was adding geography and specialty services where it wanted scale. It moved out of at least some areas where another owner could supply more focused capital or distribution. Then it sold a majority stake to Reverence, a sponsor whose main skill is building regulated financial-services platforms.

The valuation is therefore not just a price for current accounting revenue. It is a price for a platform already in motion.

The Reverence record

Reverence describes itself as a financial-services investor with more than $17 billion in assets under management. Its strategies include financial services, private equity, structured credit and real estate solutions. The firm was founded in 2013 by former Goldman Sachs executives Milton Berlinski and Peter Aberg and a former managing director at General Atlantic, Alex Chulack.

The most visible comparison is Osaic, formerly Advisor Group. Reverence invested in Advisor Group in 2019. In April, Reverence announced a more than $2 billion recapitalization of Osaic, with Ares Secondaries funds, Lexington Partners and Bain Capital among the investors. Reverence says Osaic had grown to about 10,000 financial advisors and $747 billion in client assets under administration.

Reverence brings a playbook from an adjacent financial-services sector: assemble a broad professional network, centralize capital, supply technology, preserve local client relationships, add operating discipline and use acquisitions to increase scale. In wealth management, that means advisors and client assets. In accounting, it means partners, staff, clients, offices, tax relationships and advisory workflows.

The compliance complications of a roll-up

But large regulated networks carry compliance exposure, conflict management problems and reputational spillover. Osaic has faced a 2025 class-action complaint alleging that its cash-sweep programs underpaid clients on uninvested cash while Osaic and program banks kept the spread.

In the only-in-private-equity department, Reverence had one portfolio company suing another. In 2021, Reverence’s Advisor Group sued Venerable Insurance and Annuity Co. in a dispute described as the right hand suing the left.

History in financial services is, of course, not necessarily a guarantee of future performance. But it identifies the right question: Can a sponsor that has built scale in regulated financial services import capital, acquisition skill and systems into a CPA firm without importing the compliance frictions of a roll-up?

Divestitures tell a story

The Sage and wealth-management transactions help explain why the Reverence deal should not be reduced to a partner cash-out. Eide Bailly was already making choices about where it wanted to own economics directly and where it could partner, sell or outsource.

The Sage transaction moved a software practice and more than 400 clients to Net at Work, a technology and business consultancy with its own Sage scale. The Sequoia transaction moved a wealth-management practice with $1.6 billion in assets to an RIA buyer that wanted western expansion, while Eide Bailly retained an equity interest and referral partnership.

Those platform decisions clarify management focus, simplify ownership and allow the firm to emphasize audit, tax, advisory, technology consulting and, of course, acquisitions.