Wipfli Had “The Talk” With Its People About That Private Equity Rumor (UPDATE)

Posted on by Going Concern News Desk
old accounting firm partner cashing out

Wall Street Journal ran a story yesterday on a probable deal between Milwaukee’s Wipfli (IPA Top 100 #21 with $612 million in revenue) and Grant Thornton’s sugar daddy New Mountain Capital. They said:

Wipfli is in advanced talks to sell a roughly 40% stake to New Mountain Capital, which would make it the latest accounting firm to turn to private-equity investors to help accelerate revenue growth.

The stake in the Milwaukee-based firm would value it at north of $1 billion, people familiar with the matter said. Wipfli audits the financial statements of the National Football League’s Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers.

According to a tipster, a firm-wide call took place yesterday in which the serfs were informed of said deal, a deal that is still in the works and needs a partner vote before it’s made official. Managing partner Kurt Gresens “expects it to pass,” our tipster said.

Oh, and there’s a lively discussion happening at r/accounting here. Top comment so far:

Comment
byu/Catdawg12 from discussion
inAccounting

Update: It’s official, announced August 1.

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Firm Watch: BDO

BDO-small.jpgAll right, so this is it for our firm watch. We realize loading three firms into one day wasn’t such a good idea but we procrastinated out of habit.
We wrap up with BDO Seidman, who some of you probably consider to be TTT-1 but whatevs.
See BDO’s list, after the jump


• Lawsuits – BDO International Global Cooperation hit the lottery when a jury in South Florida bought the wedding planner defense in the Banco Espirito lawsuit. That left the U.S. firm to deal with the $520 million verdict in the original case. The U.S. firm just reported revenue results of $622 million. No word on how that will reconcile.
• Madoff Exposure – Listed as a defendant in seven lawsuits.
• Overtime Lawsuits – List as a defendant in one lawsuit.
• Layoffs, etc. – Same dealio as GT. We’ve only heard of minor layoffs but as high as 200 in the UK. Get us up to speed if you’ve got details.
• Miscellaneous – Global CEO Jeremy Newman has a blog that is frequently TLDR. The U.S. CEO has been compared to a special version of Ricardo Montalban and a former partner had to recently give up his boat.
Finally. That catches you up on all the firms that you’ll see regularly around here. They all seem doomed but also have the tenacity of cockroaches. You’ll see our totally unfair, unrealistic ranking tomorrow with some updates that we’ve gotten throughout the week. Before then, continue to send us your tips to tips@goingconcern.com.

2 thoughts on “Wipfli Had “The Talk” With Its People About That Private Equity Rumor (UPDATE)”

  1. That PE firm will give all kinds of money for acquisitions while trimming existing fat from the firm. Marginal employees should reinvent themselves or start looking for new employment.

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  2. It is pure greed by the partners and a way to grow their profits on the backs of their employees rather than doing the work to grow the firm through hard work themselves. Shame on you!

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