PE Archives - CPA Trendlines

Private Equity’s Accounting Playbook Is Shifting from Dealmaking to Operating Systems

May 26, 2026

Prove It: PE-Backed Firms Must Now Deliver on Their Big Strategies

CPA Trendlines CPA-PE Deal Tracker™ — May 2026

Target	Platform/Buyer	Sponsor	Funding	Strategy
Jackson Thornton	Ascend	Alpine Investors	PE-backed	Wealth management, Gulf Coast expansion
Jefferson Wells U.S.	Sikich	Bain Capital involvement	Institutionally backed	Consulting and staffing capabilities
Copeland Buhl	Frazier & Deeter	—	Conventional M&A	First Midwest footprint
Price Kong	Aprio	Charlesbank	PE-backed	Arizona and cannabis specialization
SWKJD	Citrin Cooperman	Blackstone	PE-backed	South Florida expansion
Gorfine Schiller & Gardyn	Sorren	DFW Capital	PE-backed	Mid-Atlantic expansion
Gordon Advisors	Cohen & Co.	Lovell Minnick	PE-backed	Michigan expansion
ArightCo	Abbott Stringham & Lynch	—	Conventional M&A	CAS and fractional CFO scaling
ASO Advisors	Windsor Path	Family-office backed	Private capital	Platform’s second deal
GBC Advisory	Springline Advisory	Trinity Hunt Partners	PE-backed	Oklahoma expansion
MCA Connect	Grant Thornton Advisors	New Mountain Capital	PE-backed	AI and digital transformation
Burke & Associates	Platform Accounting Group / Shoreline	Cynosure Group	Private capital	Massachusetts expansion

Of the month’s notable deals, 10 are funded by outside capital, led by Grant Thornton’s deal for a tech consultancy and Sikich’s for a staffing service.

**Half “decidedly opposed”** and the other half in favor, in talks or done. (CPA Trendlines Research)

By CPA Trendlines

Marking a new phase in the private equity takeover of the CPA business, the next test for accounting platforms will be proving that serial acquisitions can be converted into integrated firms, not just larger collections of offices, partners and legacy systems.

MORE CPA-PE DEAL TRACKER™: How Big Buyouts Are Turning the Profession into a Platform | PE Wars: The CPA Platform Economy Is Concentrating Fast | Alan Whitman: Why the Next Big CPA Firms Won’t Look Like CPA Firms | The PE Takeover: Audit Problem? What Audit Problem? | 1,000 Deals Show Where PE Money in Accounting Really Goes. | The 7.6x Machine: How Grassroots Firms Are Taking Private Equity for a Ride | Deal Tracker(™): PE Platforms Accelerate the Grab for CPA Firms | With Apax Sale, CohnReznick Starts Building a National Platform | PE Deal Tracker™ for Feb. 2026: 57 deals in 60 days | PE Deal Tracker™ Update: Alan Whitman Plants a Flag in the Private Equity Landscape | Alan Whitman: Breaking the Mold with PE Backing

MORE Private Equity

Call it: The Implementation Imperative. It’s the place where grand schemes on paper meet the concrete realities of running a business. The first phase was acquisition. The second was consolidation. The next is all about making it work.

The May 2026 edition of the CPA Trendlines CPA-PE Deal Tracker™ illustrates the change. And a CPA Trendlines survey in April shows 44% of accountants are eager, open or already closed on a deal.

CPA-PE Deal Tracker™: How Big Buyouts Are Turning the Profession into a Platform

May 7, 2026

By CPA Trendlines Research

Venture capital crashes the private equity party in accounting.

**Consolidation constellation:** Sponsors in blue, platforms in red, targets in gold.

By CPA Trendlines Research

**The CPA Trendlines CPA PE Deal Tracker**™ shows the steep rise in deal flow, hitting more than 450.

Private equity’s push into accounting is entering a new and more complicated phase: platform building, sponsor recycling, technology investments, blended tax and wealth services — and now, a new pipeline of cash from venture capital.

MORE PE Wars: The CPA Platform Economy Is Concentrating Fast | Alan Whitman: Why the Next Big CPA Firms Won’t Look Like CPA Firms | Gear Up for Growth | The PE Takeover: Audit Problem? What Audit Problem? | 1,000 Deals Show Where PE Money in Accounting Really Goes. | The 7.6x Machine: How Grassroots Firms Are Taking Private Equity for a Ride | Deal Tracker: PE Platforms Accelerate the Grab for CPA Firms | With Apax Sale, CohnReznick Starts Building a National Platform | PE Deal Tracker for Feb. 2026: 57 deals in 60 days | PE Deal Tracker Update: Alan Whitman Plants a Flag in the Private Equity Landscape | Alan Whitman: Breaking the Mold with PE Backing | Holistic Guide

MORE Private Equity

This month’s CPA Trendlines CPA-PE Deal Tracker™ shows nine new deals in April, down from the first-quarter deal-closing frenzy but bringing the year-to-date deal count through April 30 to 78, well ahead of the 44 logged in the same window of 2025.

The broader verified dataset now includes 452 in-scope events, giving CPA Trendlines a clearer view of what private capital is doing after its first wave of accounting-firm investments.

The latest data does not show a retreat. It shows a transformation. The new gambits go well beyond roll-ups, and include service line extensions, corporate carve-outs, cross-industry tie-ups, recapitalizations, continuations and a buzzy new venture-backed startup.

World domination

The deal models are sprawling in all directions as big money battles for a dwindling number of prime firms and squeezes for synergies in the firms they’ve acquired.

In the mix, accounting is morphing from a profession into a platform. A launchpad from which to sell a growing, and traditionally conflict-laden, range of products and services. From tax planning to wealth management, from outsourced accounting systems to internal audit, and from risk management to insurance sales.

A once incongruous, even contradictory, collection of services are being acquired, aligned and advanced. The ambition is market encirclement. The impulse is world domination.

Webinar, May 13: Due Diligence for Private Equity

April 15, 2026

By Center for Accounting Transformation

Independence vs. Transacting: The Facts Behind Each Pathway,
with Bob and Doug Lewis, Visionary Group
May 13, 4-5 pm ET
Register here | Learn more

PE Wars: The CPA Platform Economy Is Concentrating Fast

April 1, 2026

By CPA Trendlines Research

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 this past March marks a turning point. What had been described as a consolidation phase has matured into something more defined and more consequential: a platform-driven market in which a relatively small number of repeat acquirers are shaping the profession’s future.

MORE in Private Equity:

As the first quarter of 2026 closes, the story is no longer simply about transactions. It is about structure. The question has shifted from who is buying whom to which investment models, operating systems, and capital strategies will define the next decade of accounting.

For years, the prevailing narrative held that private equity would democratize the profession. Capital, it was said, would spread broadly across hundreds of firms, opening access to institutional funding that had never before been available. But the data tells a different story.