M&A roundup: Wiltshire, Whitley, Richardson & English combines with McGee-CPA, plus more mergers

Accounting firm combinations in Florida and Alabama lead the bill in a roundup of recent M&A activity in the profession, plus a payroll company has been acquired.

Florida

Wiltshire, Whitley, Richardson & English merges in McGee-CPA, PL

Details: Wiltshire, Whitley, Richardson & English, P.A. has added McGee-CPA, PL, effective June 1.

McGee-CPA principal D. Todd McGee has offered accounting services to both individuals and businesses in Southwest Florida for more than 40 years. His firm’s services include business consulting, estate and retirement planning, business entity selection and succession planning, business valuation, financial planning, audits and reviews, bookkeeping, forensic accounting, tax planning, payroll and other services.

Wiltshire, Whitley, Richardson & English's offices in Fort Myers, Fla.

WWR&E has six partners and 14 staff, who will now be joined by McGee and his five staff members. His staff, including Brenda Sambrato, Donette Forge’t, Ashley Olsen, Leslie Diplacido and Orpah Travis, will now operate from WWR&E’s offices in Fort Myers. WWR&E also has an office in Bonita Springs, Fla. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“We recognize the tremendous value of bringing together two firms that have shared values in our approach to building lasting relationships with our clients,” said WWR&E president Cynthia M. Hawkins in a statement. “We look forward to combining our expertise and resources to further enhance the very personalized services provided to our clients.”

Alabama

Borland Benefield adds Lovoy, Summerville & Shelton

Details: Borland Benefield has merged in Lovoy, Summerville & Shelton in Birmingham.

They will have 45 employees in the combined firm, according to AL.com. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. However, Borland Benefield president and managing director Jeffrey Chandler told Accounting Today his firm had annual revenue of $3.8 million while Lovejoy’s was approximately $2 million.

His firm had three partners and Lovejoy’s also has three partners, he noted, so there will be six equity partners in the combined firm. The combined firm will have around 25 to 27 CPAs, plus six candidates studying to become CPAs.

Both firms have offices in Birmingham, plus Borland has an extra office in Florence while Lovoy has one in Auburn, Ala. The firm plans to keep all the offices open for now, but eventually to merge together the Birmingham offices.

“We’re going to combine the two Birmingham offices into one office and then the Auburn office will stay open and the Florence office is going to stay open,” said Chandler. The deal will give his firm offices in the north, central and south parts of Alabama. “It expanded the Borland Benefield footprint,” said Chandler. “It’s going to expand our footprint to a statewide footprint.”

Lovoy, Summerville & Shelton shareholder Lloyd Shelton sees advantages as well. “Relationships matter,” Shelton said in a statement. “Not among our clients, but within the firm too. It’s important to us that Borland Benefield not only does good work for our clients but is also a good place to work.”

New Jersey

Details: Immedis, an Ireland-based provider of payroll and tax software, has acquired Expaticore, an Iselin, N.J.-based payroll provider that caters to international businesses and operates in more than 60 countries.

The $10 million acquisition will expands Immedis’s capabilities in the U.S. and globally. Immedis is a subsidiary of the Irish-owned Taxback Group, which specializes in global payroll technology and employment tax services. Its clients include Airbus, ESB International and Lifes2Good. The acquisition is a first for Immedis, signifying a key step in the organization’s ambitious growth plans internationally, according to an announcement by Enterprise Ireland, the Irish State agency that works to grow Irish companies and win export sales in global markets.

“Today’s acquisition is an inflection point for Immedis,” said Immedis executive director Ruairi Kelleher in a statement. “Clearly, there is strong potential in North America for the comprehensive range of services and technologies we offer and now with the inclusion of Expaticore’s services to our portfolio and employee-base to our team, that potential can be realized to its full extent! Today’s announcement is a testament to the incredibly hard work of the team here at Immedis, the wider Taxback Group and the fantastic support we received from Enterprise Ireland.”

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