CLA merges in Hayashi Wayland

CliftonLarsonAllen is expanding its presence in California by adding the Salinas-based accounting and advisory firm Hayashi Wayland, effective Nov. 1, 2022.

The deal, announced Tuesday, will increase CLA's California team to over 700 people, providing more expertise in the state's key agricultural industry. Hayashi will be adding 85 employees, including seven principals, to the Top 10 Firm, three of whom will have an ownership interest. CLA has a total of 8,500 people at the firm, including 1,000 principals. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. CLA ranked No. 8 on Accounting Today's 2022 list of the Top 100 Firms. The firm expects to do $1.7 billion in revenue this year.

Hayashi Wayland was founded in 1976 and serves clients in the agriculture, hospitality and nonprofit sectors, with traditional accounting services along with advisory services for family offices, general business, estate and trust, and retirement and investment planning. The firm has offices in Salinas, Paso Robles, King City, and Carmel, California. 

CLA has been doing more mergers lately, adding Concannon Miller in Florida and Pennsylvania just last week and Price CPAs in Nashville, Tennessee, in June. The Central Coast area of California was seen as a key market for CLA to expand into as part of its growth strategy.

"When we look around the country at firms to acquire, we're blessed from the standpoint that we have a robust domestic footprint," said Scott Engelbrecht, chief geographic officer at CLA. "With some 120 locations around the country, if you look at the domestic footprint, we don't have many holes around the country, but there are a couple. Although we've been growing in California quite rapidly since 2015, we felt we had a hole from the Bay Area down to L.A. as well as into San Diego. What Hayashi Wayland does for us is it's a connector from the Bay Area down to L.A. and it does so in a way that also enhances one of our core industries, and that's agribusiness."

The deal will also add more expertise in the other industry sectors that Hayashi Wayland serves. "Helping others achieve greater success personally and professionally is at the heart of what we do," said Hayashi Wayland managing partner Michael Briley said in a statement. "Joining CLA makes sense for us, because CLA shares this passion and commitment to know and help clients, team members and community alike."

Engelbrecht expects CLA to announce further deals in the near future, both in the U.S. and abroad. "We're still very active in talking with some firms this year, and we'll likely have some other things to announce," he said. "We're very much continuing to look at acquisitions around the country that fit our demographic footprint, in the Midwest, the West and the Southeast."

Over the summer, CLA announced plans to expand internationally by forming CLA Global Limited in collaboration with Evelyn Partners, a U.K.-based wealth management group. "Together with them, we're looking to expand the CLA Global network throughout the world," said Engelbrecht. "There likely will be three or four countries that we will be looking to set up offices in as well in the upcoming months and years. We continue to very much believe in the fact that our acquisition strategy is one that gives firms that join us an opportunity to have success in a larger environment, but in an environment that is still focused on serving privately held businesses and their owners."