Filomeno & Company PC, an eight-partner CPA firm based here, has expanded its financial planning practice with the merger of fee-only planning firm Thibodeau Financial Advisors LLC into its fold.
Firm founder Richard E. Thibodeau, CPA/PFS, JD, is now the director of Personal Financial Services at Filomeno & Co. In his new role, Thibodeau specializes in income tax, estate, investment and retirement planning.
"I recognized a couple years ago that I needed to address some concerns of mine," Thibodeau, a sole practitioner, said of the decision to merge his $500,000 practice into a CPA firm. His RIA firm provided estate, tax and investment planning and tax prep services to high-net-worth individuals.
"I was starting to get concerned about the amount of time I was spending to administer and manage my practice. As a sole practitioner, I didn't have the infrastructure to support the growth of my business." Succession planning was also a concern, said Thibodeau, who decided last year that he "couldn't go through another busy season like this," and began his search for a CPA firm that would be a good fit for his practice. Thibodeau, who was a tax partner with Coopers & Lybrand prior to opening his own firm in 1992, knew he wanted to go back into an accounting firm.
"I had no interest in merging into a very large firm," said Thibodeau. "I wanted somewhere that I felt I could be a good size fish and have sense of my own destiny and also make a major contribution to organization. I also needed a firm that was well-managed to relieve me of my administrative burdens."
After doing his due diligence and narrowing his options from five firms to two, Thibodeau felt Filomeno was the best fit. "I knew the firm, I had a sense of their reputation," and he liked the firm's size. Filomeno, which specializes in serving the manufacturing, medical, auto dealers, retail, not-for-profit, construction and funeral home industries, has a staff of 40. One month after the union, Thibodeau said he "couldn't be happier."
"This allows me to spends hundreds less hours on administrative [duties] and to spend more time serving clients and developing and mentoring staff," he said. The marriage also expanded the services Thibodeau could offer his planning clients.
