private equity

$55 a Share: Who Won, Who Lost in CBIZ’s 29-Year Rollup

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For Marcum partners, it’s complicated.

At $55, GT is offering the best price all year, not as good as last year.

By CPA Trendlines Research
Special Report

Grant Thornton’s cash offer creates four very different CBIZ histories: a modest return for some long-term holders, a nearly 4,800% gain for investors who bought after the 2000 collapse, a 38% loss from the 2025 peak and no single answer for former Marcum partners.

MORE Special Report on the CBIZ-Grant Thornton Deal: 
    1. Fatal Attraction: How the Marcum Deal Set Up CBIZ for the Grant Thornton Takeover
    2. CBIZ Tells Grant Thornton No, No, No, Before Saying Yes
    3. Grant Thornton Flexes PE Muscle in CBIZ Deal
    4. CBIZ: Spanning 2 Rollup Eras in 2 Centuries
    5. $55 a Share: Who Won, Who Lost in CBIZ’s 29-Year Rollup
    6. The Grant Thornton Payday: $22 Million for CBIZ CEO Grisko
MORE Private Equity

Same deal. Same $55 a share, cash, on the table for every CBIZ shareholder. Four completely different outcomes, depending on when you bought in.

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CBIZ: Spanning 2 Rollup Eras in 2 Centuries

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CBIZ, once known as Century Business Services,  started with a “rapacious appetite” for acquisitions. Now it’s the appetizer.

By CPA Trendlines Research
Special Report

The company that helped pioneer Wall Street-backed accounting consolidation in the 1990s is set to be absorbed by today’s private-capital version of the same idea.

MORE Special Report on the CBIZ-Grant Thornton Deal: 

  1. Fatal Attraction: How the Marcum Deal Set Up CBIZ for the Grant Thornton Takeover
  2. CBIZ Tells Grant Thornton No, No, No, Before Saying Yes
  3. Grant Thornton Flexes PE Muscle in CBIZ Deal
  4. CBIZ: Spanning 2 Rollup Eras in 2 Centuries
  5. $55 a Share: Who Won, Who Lost in CBIZ’s 29-Year Rollup
  6. CPA PE Deal Tracker™: The Consolidator Gets Consolidated

COMING NEXT: Was CBIZ CEO Jerry Grisko Worth It? MORE Private Equity

Twenty-seven years ago, a rollup called Century Business Services was buying accounting firms with what its own mergers chief called a “rapacious appetite.” Today it goes by a different name — CBIZ. And on July 28, it agreed to be bought.
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Grant Thornton Flexes PE Muscle in CBIZ Deal

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The biggest bank account wins.

By CPA Trendlines Research
Special Report

If the Grant Thornton deal for CBIZ suggests the next stage of accounting firm consolidation, then size alone, as measured in top firm rankings, is no longer the decisive advantage.

MORE Special Report on the CBIZ-Grant Thornton Deal: 

  1. Fatal Attraction: How the Marcum Deal Set Up CBIZ for the Grant Thornton Takeover
  2. CBIZ Tells Grant Thornton No, No, No, Before Saying Yes
  3. Grant Thornton Flexes PE Muscle in CBIZ Deal
  4. CBIZ: Spanning 2 Rollup Eras in 2 Centuries
  5. $55 a Share: Who Won, Who Lost in CBIZ’s 29-Year Rollup
  6. CPA PE Deal Tracker™: The Consolidator Gets Consolidated

COMING NEXT: Was CBIZ CEO Jerry Grisko Worth It? MORE Private Equity

Instead, capital that can be deployed repeatedly into acquisitions, technology and integration is today’s essential ingredient. READ MORE →

CPA PE Deal Tracker™: The Consolidator Gets Consolidated

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The month culminates with $5 billion CBIZ – Grant Thornton deal as flow drops 47%.By CPA Trendlines Research
Special Report

CBIZ spent years buying firms before agreeing to be bought itself on July 29 by Grant Thornton for $5 billion.

The biggest deal ever comes as the deal flow slows, but the deals get bigger.

MORE Special Report on the CBIZ-Grant Thornton Deal: 

  1. Fatal Attraction: How the Marcum Deal Set Up CBIZ for the Grant Thornton Takeover
  2. CBIZ Tells Grant Thornton No, No, No, Before Saying Yes
  3. Grant Thornton Flexes PE Muscle in CBIZ Deal
  4. CBIZ: Spanning 2 Rollup Eras in 2 Centuries
  5. $55 a Share: Who Won, Who Lost in CBIZ’s 29-Year Rollup
  6. CPA PE Deal Tracker™: The Consolidator Gets Consolidated

COMING NEXT: Was CBIZ CEO Jerry Grisko Worth It? MORE Private Equity

The CPA Trendlines CPA PE Deal Tracker™ records nine institutionally backed acquisitions in July, down from 17 a year earlier. The rolling 12-month institutional transaction count falls from a record 230 in March to 225 in April, 223 in May, 215 in June and 207 in July.

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Private Equity Brings in the Big Guns

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New executives take the reins at CPA firms.

New deals, new faces. Top row: Burger, Brady, Whitman. Bottom row: Cordero, O’Boyle, Garrambone, Comerford.

By CPA Trendlines Research

Jim Brady spent 45 years helping lead Deloitte and Grant Thornton. Dee Burger developed consulting and technology businesses at Capgemini and Insight Enterprises. Alan Whitman built Baker Tilly into one of the nation’s largest accounting firms.

MORE Private Equity

Now all three are taking top positions at accounting firms backed by private equity, as institutional investors increasingly pair growth capital with experienced executives to steer platforms into larger, more diversified organizations.

The CPA PE Deal Tracker™ from CPA Trendlines documents 527 institutional investments and acquisitions involving accounting firms and related businesses from 2020 through June 2026, including 474 transactions backed by institutional capital and 386 private-equity-backed transactions in particular. Much of the consolidation surge focuses on ownership, acquisitions and valuation. But now some executive appointments point to another trend: building deeper executive leadership.

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How Private Equity Turns CPA Loyalty into Legal Risk

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Overlapping ownership tests conflict and control. Cue the lawyers.

Rivals in the Loop: Grant Thornton and Wipfli, now stablemates under New Mountain Capital’s billion-dollar investments, seek to maintain separate operations and arm’s-length decision-making. Shown in Chicago: The Grant Thornton Tower on North Clark (left) and Wipfli offices at the Chicago Title building on Wacker (right).

By CPA Trendlines Research

Grant Thornton and Wipfli keep offices barely a half-mile apart in Chicago’s Loop — about a 10-minute walk, or a single stop on the “L.”

Zoom out. After a generation of competitive drive, the rival firms are now part of the same investor’s stable.

MORE Private Equity | What $1 Billion Buys in Today’s CPA Market

Private equity’s push into accounting is making for some strange bedfellows, as some investment firms build out networks of ostensibly independent firms that increasingly overlap in clients, services, acquisitions and talent markets.

With more than 500 deals under study, the CPA PE Deal Tracker™ from CPA Trendlines Research provides a vivid picture of private equity firms quietly adding a new layer of consolidation as they roll up the CPA profession. Sponsors are evolving into holding companies with multiple platforms, built simultaneously on a number of large CPA firms as acquisition engines. At least five sponsors now hold two or more competing platforms at the same time.

“As the Peter Parker principle reminds us, with great power comes great responsibility,” Proskauer Rose LLP, the private-funds legal powerhouse, says in a client playbook. “Sponsors should remember the portfolio company corollary: with greater control comes greater exposure to liability.”

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

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

Eide Bailly MP/CEO Jeremy Hauk: Pre-building a private equity platform in plain sight.

By CPA Trendlines Research

Eide Bailly doubled billings in six years, to $840 million. They plan to do it again, but in half the time.

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.

MORE Private Equity | What $1 Billion Buys in Today’s CPA Market

How Big Buyouts Are Turning the Profession into a Platform | Private Equity Turns CPA Loyalty into Legal Risk | PE Forces Firms to Pick a Future | What Elite CPA Firms Do Differently | Private Equity’s Big Bet Faces an AI Shake-Up | Steve Stagner: From Mattress Firm to CPA Firms | Private Equity’s Accounting Playbook Shifts from Dealmaking to Operating Systems

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 Trackertm 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.

 

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CPA PE Deal Tracker™: Crowe, Eide Bailly, Stephano Slack and Meaden & Moore

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Deal Log, Analysis & Leaderboards – June-July 2026 Update

California leads with 53 tracked U.S. deals, followed by New York with 38 and Texas with 32. (CPA Trendlines CPA PE Deal Tracker™)

By CPA Trendlines Research

The newest activity in the CPA PE Deal Tracker™ from CPA Trendlines shows a sharper split between plain add-on acquisitions and platform-control events.

MORE Private Equity

The Tracker™ now follows 546 headline events, including 402 private equity acquisition rows, 493 institutional acquisition rows and 46 platform or control events since 2016.

Today’s update adds 17 verified entries since May 31: 14 in June and three so far in July. June shows 11 acquisitions and three platform-funding or control events. July adds two acquisitions and one new platform-funding event.

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Ira Rosenbloom: PE Forces Firms to Pick a Future | The Disruptors

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PE makes CPA firms rethink strategy – even if they don’t want to sell.

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The Disruptors
With Liz Farr
For CPA Trendlines

With private equity becoming “a real player and a disruptor in the marketplace,” Ira Rosenbloom, CEO of Optimum Strategies, says, the dramatic influx of capital is intensifying competition for quality firms, especially those with strong client bases and growth potential.

MORE DISRUPTORS: Candy Bellau: The $350 Pricing Mistake that Nearly Broke this Boutique Firm | The Disruptors | Poe: What P.E. Really Wants from Firms | The Disruptors  | Blake Oliver: Build a Biz that Runs Without You | Daiber: Use Succession as a Growth Strategy | Cannon: Busy Season is Self-Inflicted | Carroll: When One Person Can Break the Firm | Rampe: Build a Roadmap Even When the Road’s Not There | Chang: Killing SALY, One Agent at a Time |

MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network

Firms that PE wouldn’t touch are now being approached by brokers without accounting industry experience, hired by PE groups striving to “build an engine,” Rosenbloom says. But the unwanted attention has “helped some of the smaller firms quickly decide they don’t want to go down that path.” So they “take themselves out of the running for a PE situation quicker because of a better understanding of what private equity wants,” he explains.

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Allan Koltin: What Elite CPA Firms Do Differently | Gear Up for Growth

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The best firms build accountability cultures, develop climbers, and make tough calls.

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Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
for CPA Trendlines

“Some firms dream of being great but only are willing to make the commitment to be good,” Allan Koltin, CEO of Koltin Consulting Group, says in the new episode of Gear Up for Growth with host Jean Caragher. “Leadership is the delta that separates all.”

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

MORE What $1 Billion Buys in Today’s CPA Market

Koltin says the gap between elite firms and average firms keeps widening, and leadership is the defining factor. Widely recognized as one of the profession’s top consultants, he argues that firms chasing high performance must stop avoiding hard decisions, embrace accountability, and rethink what leadership means.

“You can have the same clients, same talent pool, same market opportunities, and one firm ends up in the upper quartile while another struggles,” Koltin says. “The difference is leadership.” READ MORE →