Details: Aprio LLP, a Top 50 Firm headquartered in Atlanta, is combining with RINA Accountants & Advisors, a firm in the San Francisco Bay area, effective July 1.
The combination will increase Aprio’s team to more than 1,000 people across 10 key markets. RINA’s 80 team members, including 12 partners and 68 other staff will join Aprio on July 1, 2022. Aprio has more than 950 staff members.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Aprio ranked No. 35 on
Accounting Today’s 2022 list of the Top 100 Firms, with $171 million in annual revenue last year. Rina’s annual revenue was $20 million.
RINA was founded in 1946 and has two offices in San Francisco and Walnut Creek, California. Bay Area. It’s a member of the MGI Worldwide network. The firm serves high-net-worth individuals and closely held businesses across various industries, including real estate, non-profit, manufacturing, technology and professional services.
“Aprio is thrilled for RINA to join forces with us — their dynamic and ambitious culture aligns with our foremost mission to help our clients achieve what’s next,” said Aprio CEO and managing partner Richard Kopelman in a statement Tuesday. “Together, we will create exceptional experiences for our clients, helping them mitigate risk so they can achieve their growth objectives.”
As part of the deal RINA managing partner Tom Neff will join Aprio as partner and Bay Area leader.
“We knew that combining with a premier, forward-thinking firm would create the best opportunities for our clients and team members, enabling our people and clients to thrive in the many years to come,” Neff said in a statement. “We anticipate our team and client base will grow and expand in a meaningful way on the west coast and mirror what Aprio has accomplished on the east coast over the past five years.”
Accounts Advisory Group CEO and senior consultant Joe Tarasco advised both firms on the deal.
Aprio has grown over the past 70 years into a top 35 firm through expanded services and capabilities and has completed more than 14 strategic mergers and acquisitions in the last five years. Last month, Aprio announced a
merger with Leaf, Miele, Manganelli, Fortunato & Engel LLC (which also goes by the name Leaf Saltzman), a firm in Fairfield, New Jersey, effective June 1. In December, Aprio merged in
Henderson & Godbee in Valdosta, Georgia. The firm has done over a dozen M&A deals since 2013 to broaden its presence in key U.S. markets. Last February, it
acquired the cybersecurity firm Syzygy Solutions and its IT staffing firm Velossent in Georgia. The previous December, it added
Tarlow & Co. in New York City and
Stowe & Stowe CPAs in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Last year, Aprio onboarded 362 people through mergers, acquisitions and internal hires. “We’re very focused on the culture and we have institutionalized 31 fundamentals of behavior, and we practice one of these fundamentals every week,” Kopelman recently told
Accounting Today. ”Many companies have their four or five core values on the wall when you walk in the door and I think most companies struggle with what that really means. I believe that culture is the accumulation of stories that people inside and outside the organization tell about the company, their people and leaders, and these weekly rituals we have around our 31 fundamentals provide an opportunity for hundreds of stories to be shared around the firm every week on that fundamental. Those fundamentals might be to speak straight, have fun, be kind and deliver results. One of my favorite fundamentals is blameless problem solving. I think many companies get stuck and fixated and pointing fingers and blaming one another, especially in high stress environments, and we take the approach of OK, it’s happened. Now let’s go solve it.”