Steve Stagner: From Mattress Firm to CPA Firms

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Before Rolling Up CPA Firms, Current’s CEO Built a Retail Empire on Acquisitions — Then Watched It Buckle.

Stagner: Will formulas from mattress retailers and veterinarians work for CPA firms?

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 What $1 Billion Buys in Today’s CPA Market

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 |

MORE Private Equity and Institutional Capital

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.

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CPA PE Deal Tracker™: What $1 Billion Buys in Today’s CPA Business

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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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CPA PE Deal Tracker™: 57% Say PE Threatens the CPA Brand.

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But They’ll Take the Money.

Most CPAs are concerned that private equity is undermining the CPA profession’s reputation for independence and objectivity. Only 10% say PE will have little or no impact. Fewer still can say PE will improve client service. (CPA Trendlines)

By CPA Trendlines

It’s a toss-up between CPAs opposed to PE and those unopposed. (CPA Trendlines)

As the CPA Trendlines CPA PE Deal Tracker™ adds 13 more closings for the month of May, a new survey shows accountants worrying about PE tarnishing the image and reputation of the profession. But half say they might take the money anyway.

MORE Private Equity | MORE All 500-plus Headline Deals for the Last 10 Years

The CPA PE Deal Tracker™ now contains more than 500 headline deals and developments. Through May 31, the tracker shows 91 headline 2026 events, including 83 M&A deals. Full-year 2025 finished with 190 significant events, including 178 M&A deals. The last three consecutive months have produced the first sustained plateau in 12-month trailing M&A activity since the acceleration phase that began in 2023.

Meanwhile, nearly half of the professionals in the new CPA Trendlines survey — 49.5 percent — describe themselves as decidedly opposed to private equity investment: fiercely independent, not interested, never ever.

The rest, a bare but discernible majority, are not. They would do a deal for the right price. Or they are already in play. Or have already done a deal.

“It only makes sense to keep our options open,” says Michael Royer of Royer Advisors and Accountants in Falmouth, Maine. He is not opposed, and he is not sold, adding “it’s still a personal business — and we don’t know the full impact of AI.”

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CPA PE Deal Tracker™: 10 Years. 500-Plus Deals. $49 Billion. [May 2026]

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Deal Log, Analysis & Leaderboards – Monthly through May 2026

By CPA Trendlines Research
Private equity is buying accounting firms faster than the profession can name the buyers.

MORE Private Equity

The CPA PE Deal Tracker™ from CPA Trendlines Research now follows 525 events, including 473 acquired firms, across about 72 platforms and 69 capital sources. All reaching back to 2016.

The consolidation now represents $49 billion in transacted enterprise value, on about $24 billion in annual revenue and close to 96,000 working accountants and staff.

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Matt Rampe: Make Strategy Stick | Gear Up For Growth

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Five steps turn vision into execution.

This is a preview. The complete episode is first available exclusively to PRO Members | Go PRO here
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Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

On the latest episode of “Gear Up for Growth,” host Jean Caragher interviews Matt Rampe, partner at Rosenberg Associates and author of the forthcoming book, “CPA Firm Strategic Planning: Your Roadmap for Long-Term Success,” about how accounting firms can move beyond ad-hoc retreats to a disciplined, accountable planning process that sticks.

Rampe, who advises firms on strategy, succession, partner development, and profitability, said the book grew out of years of facilitation and coaching with firms of all sizes. “The book was in my brain for a long time before it got put on paper,” he says. “When I started writing, it actually came pretty quickly—but I learned there’s a lot more to making a book than a Word document.”

More Jean Caragher here | Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here | More Gear Up for Growth

More CPA Trendlines videos and podcasts here

Rampe argues that the profession has reached a disruption point, citing converging pressures including private equity, technology, staffing shortages, succession for retiring Baby Boomers, and a shift toward advisory services. “What worked for us 10 years ago isn’t going to work for us 10 years in the future,” he says. “The old model, where a few partners disappear into a room and come out with a plan, doesn’t work in this age. We need to be nimble.”

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