Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

BDO Excited to Join Billion-Dollar Firm Club

Hungry Hungry Hippo BDO is still gobbling up accounting firms. Its latest morsel is St. Louis-based Stone Carlie & Company and it will push Bravo Delta Oscar's revenues over $1 billion, according to CEO Wayne Berson:

Stone Carlie earns between $13 million and $14 million in annual revenue. BDO ranked 7th on Accounting Today’s 2015 list of the Top 100 Firms, with $833 million in annual revenue. BDO USA CEO Wayne Berson, who also chairs the BDO International network, estimates the firm’s revenues will top the $1 billion mark with the addition of Stone Carlie and other recent mergers, or $1.1 billion on an annualized basis.

“We are projecting to go over the $1 billion mark by year-end, June 30, which has been a big one for us,” Berson told Accounting Today. “It is definitely something we are excited about.”

Wayne-o doesn't quite come right out and say it, but it kinda sounds like BDO wants to eat its way into becoming a Big 5 firm:

Berson explained that BDO’s expansion strategy is built around three priorities. “We want to get more critical mass in existing major markets,” he said. “We want to expand our geographic coverage in new strategic markets, and we want to have additional resources in existing industries or service strengths. In Stone Carlie we believe we have added a well-respected firm with established professional resources in a new strategic market. Their client base aligns very well with BDO industries, and they also bring a wealth advisory practice that BDO doesn’t currently offer.”

The firm wants us believe it can do this through this through combination of acquisitions and "organic growth" but "expanding geographic coverage in new strategic markets" and "additional resources in existing industries or service strengths" will happen much easier through acquisitions.

And it will go on:  

Berson plans to continue pursuing BDO’s expansion strategy. “While one never wants to get bigger for big’s sake, you want to get bigger in a strategic manner,” he said. “As we’ve grown, we’ve been able to spread out a lot of our infrastructure costs as well over a larger base, and that’s playing out very well. We are also going through an expansion with a number of these firms. They are bringing in tremendous talent from the outside into BDO. That is always something we are looking for.”
Got a firm to sell? Ring up BDO.
 
[AT]