After hundreds of deals, the data show a gravitational pull toward a handful of buyers now driving the profession’s future.

CPA Trendlines PE Deal Tracker: Mega-aggregators dominate the money flow as the race tightens between Ascend, Aprio, Crete, Eisner and Ryan.

By CPA Trendlines Research

The frantic pace of deal-making in March has officially transitioned the accounting industry from a “consolidation phase” into a “platform war.”

As the first quarter concludes, the narrative is no longer just about who is buying whom, but about which investment philosophy—and which technology stack—will dominate the next decade.

The conventional narrative about private equity in accounting says capital is flooding in, the profession is democratizing, and every CPA firm in America can access institutional money for the first time. But the cold, hard data tells a different story.

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Of the 427 transactions logged in the CPA Trendlines PE-CPA Deal Tracker™ since 2016, more than 200 — nearly half — are concentrated in just 10 platforms. That challenges the notion of a market open to all.

The idea that PE would spread evenly across hundreds of firms, like a broad revolution, is, in the actual deal flow, a rapid gravitational implosion around a handful of mega-aggregators that are vacuuming up firms faster than the rest of the market combined. The acceleration curve alone should unsettle anyone clinging to the idea that this market is still nascent. READ MORE →