Accounting firm Cherry Bekaert, backed by private equity firm Parthenon Capital, has acquired risk management consultancy Accume Partners, which is backed by Nadavon Capital Partners. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
This is technology M&A deal number 909 that ChannelE2E has covered so far in 2022. See more than 2,000 technology M&A deals involving MSPs, MSSPs & IT service providers listed here.
Cherry Bekaert Acquires Accume Partners
Cherry Bekaert, founded in 1947, is based in Raleigh, North Carolina. The company has 1,517 employees listed on LinkedIn. Cherry Bekaert’s areas of expertise include tax, accounting and consulting, government contracting, real estate & construction, manufacturing & distribution, financial institutions, colleges and universities, M&A, audit, advisory, wealth management, financial institutions, nonprofit, CPA, business valuations, digital consulting, technology, health & life sciences, tax credits & incentives, digital transformation and government & public sector.
Accume Partners, founded in 1994, is based in Jersey City, New Jersey. The company has 173 employees listed on LinkedIn. Accume Partners’ areas of expertise include internal audit, regulatory compliance, enterprise risk management, technology risk management, operations and process improvement, cybersecurity, VISO and compliance.
The acquisition of Accume expands Cherry Bekaert’s focus on providing internal audit, risk and compliance offerings to the financial services industry and expands its risk advisory practice into the mid-Atlantic and Northeast U.S, the company said.
Srikant Sastry, advisory leader at Cherry Bekaert, commented on the news:
“In response to the ever-increasing regulatory requirements, Cherry Bekaert is focused on growing our practice with top talent to meet the needs of our clients. The Accume Partners team brings a track record of success in internal audit that will be additive along with a geographical expansion of our practice. We are pleased to welcome them to the Firm as we further strengthen our risk and accounting advisory capabilities.”
Michael Barrack, CEO of Accume Partners, added:
“We are thrilled to join the Cherry Bekaert team. Our firm has strong roots in providing tailored internal audit, regulatory compliance, and technology risk management services while meeting the regulatory expectations of our financial services clients. Working together, we are excited to provide our clients with broader service offerings such as tax, digital services, data analytics and more available through Cherry Bekaert.”
Capstone Partners acted as sole financial advisor to Nadavon Capital Partners.
Cherry Bekaert M&A Activity
Cherry has M&A experience, having previously acquired data analytics and technology services firm icimo in February 2020. That deal represented the latest in a string of moves from Cherry Bekaert to expand into the IT services sector. In May 2017, Cherry launched its Technology Solutions Group, and a month later it formalized its work with Oracle NetSuite on cloud ERP solutions.
M&A activity involving accounting firms and IT service providers remains strong as accounting firms continue expanding beyond their traditional financial services to offer additional technology consulting, risk mitigation, cybersecurity and managed IT services to their clientele. Example deals are listed here.
