Announced 24 minutes ago via press release:
Aprio (or the “Company”), a leading business advisory and accounting firm, today announced that it has received a strategic investment from Charlesbank Capital Partners (“Charlesbank”), a middle-market private investment firm with more than $18 billion of capital raised since inception, to accelerate innovation and growth of the business. The transaction represents the first investment of institutional capital into Aprio.
“As our profession continues to rapidly evolve, our partnership with Charlesbank is an important leap forward in our ability to bring state-of-the-art solutions to top business leaders, while making investments that will benefit our team, clients, and communities. We are building the business advisory firm of the future, and Charlesbank shares our vision and commitment,” said Richard Kopelman, CEO. “Aprio is poised to advance to the next level, and we are excited about the opportunity to best serve our clients and fast-track our growth with a widely respected partner.”
The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. If anyone cares to leak them, you know what to do.
Earlier:
It’s going to be the least surprising follow up article of all time when all of the junior partners and senior managers leave because they have no path to becoming an equity partner. Why wouldn’t they just immediately leave for a firm with an actual path to partner? Any other outcome would be inexplicably stupid. What a disastrous move that’s going to blow up in the faces of Charlesbank in truly embarrassing fashion.
I would think just the opposite. Firms need to continue to grow to provide opportunities for their staff to move up. You will lose people if you don’t provide that growth. Many firms can’t afford to roll up firm after firm, and PE is a way to provide the financial means to do so. Now I’m unfamiliar with this firm, how their internal promotions work, and how willing they are to make new partners. I have been through this process and will tell you that, from my experience, it actually opens up the door for faster promotions within, which has to happen if you are in a growth phase or a current environment where we are seeing fewer people becoming CPA’s and more retiring. If this firm was planning correctly, which I have to assume they are, this wouldn’t hinder anyone from moving up. It would only provide more opportunities to do so. We are going to see much more of this and many small firms merging with these firms. I won’t be jumping ship to rebuild my relationships. I’m staying put and riding the growth wave and, hopefully, will be a part of the next generation of leadership at my firm.
Thanks for the input, Richard, but no one is actually gullible enough to believe that.
The word salad in the 2nd comment operates on the false premise that firms can’t grow without acquiring other firms and that staff can’t move up the ranks without selling out to private equity leeches. Plenty of accounting firms have successfully grown organically based on their own reputation alone and plenty of staff have started as interns and eventually become partners themselves all without dirty money from private equity. Just because Aprio can’t grow organically doesn’t mean that every other firm shares the same limitation. At the end of the day we are a service business built on our reputation (at least according to the SSTB rules we are). Clients have no reason to stick around for worse service and higher prices at P.E. owned firms when they can get a much better all around experience anywhere else.
Oh boy, here come the layoffs, low quality outsourcing, “cost savings” BS, another layer of top heavy bureaucracy, and more pointless mergers that do nothing for the benefit of the firm besides stroking the massive oversized egos of gray haired manchildren. I’m sure clients will love the quality tanking while the price skyrocket too.
Here’s a tip for the kids: Google what private equity has done to every other industry. That’s your future. It’s not “growth” or “opportunity” or any of the other thousands of lies you’re being sold. You were betrayed out of narcissism and greed, plain and simple. Anything suggesting otherwise is smoke and mirrors.