Details: BKD CPAs Advisors has acquired a portion of Grant Thornton’s municipal government audit practice, mostly in Texas and Oklahoma.
BKD also is acquiring a small number of nonprofit, commercial and benefit plan clients as part of the transaction.
The deal comes after six months of discussions with Grant Thornton. As part of the transaction, three new partners will join BKD. Ben Kohnle has joined BKD’s Dallas office, effective April 1, to help manage the transition of client relationships to BKD. The firm anticipates most clients will have moved to BKD by August. As a result, BKD’s revenues are expected to range from $3 million to $3.5 million in fiscal year 2021 for the practice.
The firm, based in Springfield, Missouri, ranked 15th on Accounting Today’s 2020 list of the Top 100 Firms, with a total of $662.91 million in annual revenue across the firm. Grant Thornton, based in Chicago, ranked in 6th place, with $1.95 billion in annual revenue. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The other partners joining BKD this year on a full-time basis are Angie Dunlap, who is joining BKD’s Houston office on June 15, and Dan Barron, who joins BKD’s Dallas office on Aug. 15. In the meantime, Dunlap and Barron will remain with Grant Thornton to facilitate the wrap-up of their in-process audit engagements.
“We’re excited about the clients that Ben, Dan and Angie will bring to BKD, and we also see tremendous promise in their abilities to help us grow our public sector practice, especially with large cities and public universities,” said BKD CEO Ted Dickman in a statement. “The South Region’s public sector and NFP practice has grown nearly 14 percent in FY 2020 so far, and adding this new talent will help us maintain our momentum into 2021 and beyond.”
BKD said its South Region public sector and NFP practice is one of its fastest-growing niches. The South Region has led development of BKD’s Nonprofit Advisory Services practice and has added a number of city governments, public and private universities and a wide range of nonprofit clients over the last five years.