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Steve Stagner: From Mattress Firm to CPA Firms
Before Rolling up CPA Firms, Stagner Built a Retail Empire on Acquisitions — Then Watched It Buckle.
By CPA Trendlines Research
Steve Stagner now runs Current, the accounting platform that has gathered more than 40 firms in roughly three years under backing from Thrive Holdings and describes its holding period as effectively permanent.
MORE CPA PE Deal Tracker™: What $1 Billion Buys in Today’s CPA Business
MORE CPA PE Deal Tracker™: 13 Firms Rolled Up in May. 92 So Far this Year | All 466 Deals for the Last 10 Years | Private Equity’s Accounting Playbook Is Shifting from Dealmaking to Operating Systems | CPA-PE Deal Tracker™: How Big Buyouts Are Turning the Profession into a Platform |
But before he arrived in the profession, Stagner spent a 23-year run building, taking public, selling and then rescuing the largest mattress retailer in the United States — a company whose climb and near-collapse trace almost entirely to the same instinct now reshaping the accounting business: growth by acquisition.
What Happens to Your Firm If You Don’t Come Back Monday? | ARC
After a near-fatal skiing accident, three accounting leaders confront the uncomfortable questions every firm owner should answer before a crisis strikes.
Sponsored by True Advisor: The Definitive Success Guide for Client Advisory Services by Hitendra Patil |
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Originally published March 26, 2026
Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason, Byron Patrick, and Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation
Business continuity planning often lives in the realm of “someday.”
Until it doesn’t.
In the latest episode of Accounting ARC, hosts Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA; Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP; and Liz Mason, CPA, tackle a topic many professionals avoid: what happens when the unexpected actually happens.
The conversation opens not with theory, but with a moment that makes the stakes unmistakably real.
MORE Accounting ARC: Bad Bosses or Bad Habits? The Truth About Workplace Failure | Why Relationships Still Drive Career Success | The Real Problem with AI in Accounting | AI Can Fix Your Workflow—or Break It in Seconds | Efficiency Is the Wrong Goal for AI | Accounting’s Hidden Talent Risk: The Sandwich Generation | Built Fast. Sold Faster. Broken Later? The Truth About Accounting Tech | Recognize When You Need to Recharge Before You Burn Out | Valuing More Than the Balance Sheet | Accounting’s “Untalked-About” Frontier | Why Happiness is Hard-Fought for High Achievers | The Fastest Way to Lose Talent Is “Dick Leadership” | Post-Holiday Fatigue Isn’t a Failure; It’s a Signal | OCR, Research Bots & Meeting Assistants: What Actually Helps Now | Return Season is the New Stress Test | Small Firms May Have the Biggest Advantage in 2026 | Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting |
Mason, CEO of High Rock Accounting, recounts a recent skiing accident in which she fell roughly 200 yards and collided with a tree at high speed. She survived with a broken leg—but the incident forced a sobering question: What would have happened to her firm if she hadn’t?
How Siblings Can Derail a Family Business
Succession plans can be tricky … for the advisor.
By Ed Mendlowitz
Call Me Before You Do Anything: The Art of Accounting
Someone has to be the boss. When the founder is active, he or she is usually the boss. But what about parents who step aside to have their children run the business? Particularly where there is more than one child working in the business?
MORE by Ed Mendlowitz
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I’ve seen some situations where two siblings can run the business as equals. And then, there are other situations where they can’t. What do you do?
Art Werner: Just Don’t Call it a Trump Account | Quick Tax Tip
Trump accounts can be “one of the best” long-term planning options, despite their name, says Werner.
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Quick Tax Tip
With Art Werner
CPE Today
Trump accounts are “one of the best provisions that we have seen,” tax expert Art Werner says in this Quick Tax Tip.
Acknowledging that the name itself may create resistance among some taxpayers, he says that for people who are not fond of President Trump, “when they hear the name Trump account, it turns them off.” But if they dismiss the account because of its name, he adds, “they are walking away from a tremendous opportunity.”
MORE Art Werner | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network
Werner explains that funds in a Trump Account are effectively locked away until the child reaches age 18. Once the beneficiary reaches adulthood, the money can be used for specific purposes that he describes as major life milestones, including higher education, purchasing a first home, starting a business, and ultimately retirement planning.
CPA PE Deal Tracker™: What $1 Billion Buys in Today’s CPA Business
A Tale of Two Theses: Two of the world’s biggest investors place opposing bets.
KKR takes Crowe. Baker Tilly lands Anchin. Smith+Howard flips. Cherry Baekert ropes Calvetti Ferguson.
By CPA Trendlines Research
KKR, the global investment firm synonymous with “leveraged buyout,” is taking a majority stake in Crowe, 12th on the top 100 lists, for $2.5 billion to $3 billion, including $1 billion in debt.
MORE Private Equity and Institutional Capital | MORE CPA PE Deal Tracker™: 13 Firms Rolled Up in May. 92 So Far this Year | All 466 Deals for the Last 10 Years | Private Equity’s Accounting Playbook Is Shifting from Dealmaking to Operating Systems | CPA-PE Deal Tracker™: How Big Buyouts Are Turning the Profession into a Platform | Ready the Stack Play: Tech Arbitrage Under Private Equity | Staying Independent: Why Your Best Clients Hope You Turn Down Private Equity |PE Wars: The CPA Platform Economy Is Concentrating Fast | The PE Takeover: Audit Problem? What Audit Problem? | The 7.6x Machine: How Grassroots Firms Are Taking Private Equity for a Ride | With Apax Sale, CohnReznick Starts Building a National Platform | PE Deal Tracker Update: Alan Whitman Plants a Flag in the Private Equity Landscape | How PE Drives Billing Rates Higher | How Private Equity Created $200 Billion in New Riches for CPAs |
Meanwhile, the Tampa-based platform Crete Professionals Alliance is renaming itself Current and confirming that backer Thrive Holdings is earmarking up to $1 billion to roll up dozens of small and midsize local firms.
Each set of investors is deploying $1 billion or more, but with very different theses. The fact that the market is supporting both suggests the market hasn’t decided which is the better strategy.
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