296 search results for "by marc rosenberg"

what a cpa firm is worth

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calculatorlook at the revenue stream. goodwill is another story.

by marc rosenberg
retirements & buyouts

to illustrate a cpa firm’s value, let’s use an example of a plain-vanilla or average firm:

  • annual revenues: $6 million.
  • six partners with ages spread evenly between 45 and 62.
  • average partner income: $350,000.
  • ratio of professional staff to partner is 3.5.
  • firm is located in a city with a population in excess of 1m.
  • clients are all in common industries such as manufacturing, real estate, health care, etc. no niches or specialties.
  • services are all traditional annuity types such as accounting and tax.
  • the firm’s accrual basis capital, primarily wip and a/r, is $1.2m.

now, let’s compute the value.

read more →

mergers: 11 lessons from done deals

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if they had it all to do over again…

by marc rosenberg
cpa firm mergers

as you might suspect, in 20 years of consulting to cpa firms, several dozen mergers of my clients have taken place.

from time to time, i meet with the managing partner of the firm that was my client and ask them how the merger went, what they would do differently and what advice they would give to firms contemplating a merger.

here are some choice morsels… read more →

‘show me the money!’ partners balk at retirement planning

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targeted retirement age as cpa ages
targeted retirement age as cpa ages

developing successful strategies for changing expectations.

by marc rosenberg
cpa firm retirements & buyouts

the concept of retirement for cpas is rather amusing.

younger partners (say, under 40) insist with unshakable confidence that the oldest they will ever work is 50 or 55. they have other things to do with their lives (own another business, do charity work, pursue hobbies, etc.) besides working at a cpa firm and they want to pursue these interests while still young.

older partners (say, over 55) see themselves working indefinitely, with 65 being the earliest age that they will even consider retiring. read more →

how to use snail mail to find sellers for mergers

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with four steps and a sample letter.

by marc rosenberg
cpa firm mergers

in all areas of mergers and acquisitions, it’s always much more difficult to find sellers than buyers. this is certainly true in the case of cpa firms. cpa firm merger consultants and brokers can do a great job finding buyers, but they are limited in their ability to dig up sellers. this is because the vast majority of all mergers and sales take place when buyers or sellers who “know each other” get together on their own without the help of a consultant.

one way to identify sellers is to conduct a snail mail solicitation. the steps in the process are: read more →

how to plant seeds for mergers

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veteran buyers say that for every firm they merge with, they had discussions with 10 others.

by marc rosenberg
cpa firm mergers

firms that are serious about merging in smaller firms on a regular basis understand that conducting mergers is all about planting seeds.

a buyer has to have this attitude:

every day of every year, at least one firm decides to test the merger waters. if our efforts to identify sellers are made continuously throughout the year, every year, sooner or later, we will find at least one interested merger candidate and probably more than one. read more →