Mergers, Acquisitions, & Succession Planning when Everyone Involved is an Expert
By David McClure, CPA, CFP, PFS
On October 1, 2018, the offices of McClure, CPA PA combined firms and operations with Bernard Robinson & Company, LLP (BRC). By building on the strengths of both firms, we strengthen our ability to attract top industry talent and continue to offer expanded quality services to our clients. Thank you to all the wonderful BRC people who helped us with this transition. It is very obvious the BRC family cares about its people and clients. We definitely made the right decision to join the BRC team.
The topic of mergers and acquisitions usually is a stressful and uneasy topic with most firms. It usually involves many conversations with various people on how to structure the transaction. Once you begin discussing how to do things, you very quickly get to what each party to the transaction does with their people to add value to the client. The how and the what questions need to be addressed before things can advance to a completed merger. However, starting with those questions usually impedes the merger discussion process.
We chose to start with the why and the who in the merger process in order to make sure our firm cultures and people would work together in an efficient and meaningful way once we became one firm. Why any company does something is a very basic and simple question to answer. Most companies are either concerned with the craft they offer or the business they operate to make money. Both firms had a strong commitment to offering excellent client accounting, auditing, tax and consulting services to our clients and wanted to maintain that focus. The why had been answered.
Both firms were dedicated to serving our clients’ financial and business needs and wanted to maintain this as their primary focus. In order to continue to serve our clients with best in class technology and the industry’s best people, both firms knew they had to continue to grow. BRC had been listed in Business NC as one of the top 5 employers in NC and simultaneously listed in Accounting Today as one of the best accounting firms to work for during 2018. Similar office environments, maintaining a work-life-balance, and embracing a mobile and flexible work force proved our firm cultures could easily blend together.
Knowing who you work for and with, and knowing why you do it, is a very comforting feeling. This becomes the very foundation of trust. This trust allowed us to easily work out the details of how to merge operations. Recently, I was working with a client on how to structure a potential merger they were considering. Having just recently completed our own transaction, I was reminded to recommend that they focus first on the people and then begin the process of how to structure the merger.
We are very excited to be joining the BRC team and look forward to continuing to grow in our depth and breadth of services we offer our clients.