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Grant Thornton seals accounting sector’s largest takeover in a generation
US audit and consulting firm to buy publicly listed CBIZ for $5bn in all-cash deal
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Stephen Foley in New York
Published2 hours ago
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Grant Thornton is buying rival CBIZ for $5bn in cash in the largest takeover in the accounting sector in a generation, vaulting it to become the biggest audit and consulting firm in the US outside the Big Four.
The deal, announced on Wednesday, will create a combined group with more than $5bn in US revenue and underscores how private equity has sparked rapid consolidation in the mid-market accounting sector.
Grant Thornton has been on an acquisition spree since it sold a majority stake to a consortium led by New Mountain Capital two years ago, but it had been leapfrogged in terms of US revenue by another deal-hungry private equity-backed firm, Baker Tilly.
CBIZ, which for almost 30 years has been the only audit firm listed on the US stock market, has also bulked up substantially by acquiring Marcum, one of the most prolific auditors of US public companies, in 2024.
CBIZ is the eighth-largest US firm by revenue, with Grant Thornton in ninth place. The combined group would overtake RSM, which had $4.9bn in revenue last year, according to Accounting Today rankings.
CBIZ has more than 9,500 staff across the US, historically focused on small and medium-sized businesses and individual clients. Grant Thornton is part of an international network of firms, many jointly owned with New Mountain, and the deal would give CBIZ clients access to services around the world, the firms said.
New Mountain plans to spin out CBIZ’s non-accounting businesses, which offer retirement benefit and insurance services, into a separate company after the deal closes.
Jim Peko, Grant Thornton chief executive, said: “By combining our multinational platform with CBIZ’s strong market presence, we’re broadening our ability to support businesses through every stage of growth — from early development to global scale.”
Under the terms of the deal, CBIZ shareholders will receive $55 a share in cash, which, together with debt, gives the company an enterprise value of $5bn.
The figure offers an 18 per cent premium to CBIZ’s closing share price on Tuesday and a 54 per cent premium to its 30-day average, but is a far cry from the $88.65 it touched early last year.
The company’s earnings have repeatedly disappointed Wall Street since the acquisition of Marcum, and CBIZ went from being valued more highly than private equity-backed rivals to being cheaper, in effect turning it into a takeover target.
The takeover by Grant Thornton is the largest accounting firm combination since the wave of consolidation that created the Big Four, which culminated in the 1998 merger of Price Waterhouse with Coopers & Lybrand.
“We don’t have a desire today to try to become one of the Big Five,” Peko told the FT, saying Grant Thornton would continue to focus on mid-market business.
“We believe that we’re very good in the target market that we serve. We think that there’s tremendous growth opportunity in that market. And we want to go broader and deeper within that market,” he said. “It’s great to be number five, but we’re also not focused on league tables.”
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