Armanino LLP is expanding its presence to Dallas by combining with Travis Wolff, effective Jan. 1, 2017.
Armanino, based in San Ramon, Calif., ranked 24th on Accounting Today’s 2016 list of the Top 100 Firms. Managing partner Andy Armanino anticipates his firm’s annual revenue will reach $195 million for 2016. Travis Wolff is expected to add another $23 million to $25 million to the combined firm’s revenue.
Both firms offer audit and tax services, and Travis Wolff will supplement Armanino’s practice servicing high net worth individuals and real estate businesses. Armanino also has a consulting practice offering business management and family office services. The firm specializes in technology consulting and reselling enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, budgeting, forecasting, business reporting and analytics software.
“We’re pretty strategic in our desire to grow, both organically, which has been the main means of our growth over the years, and inorganically,” Armanino told Accounting Today. “Part of the strategy from an inorganic standpoint has been to identify very strong economic markets where we feel there is great access to talent. Then we’ll identify a target firm that is culturally aligned with us, that has a leader who buys into what Armanino buys into and has some industry overlap with us, and we absolutely found that in Travis Wolff. We were looking at the Dallas marketplace because of the strong Texas economy and particularly Dallas has access to great people there. Travis Wolff has a large number of strong up and comers. Their leader, Perry Kaufman, very much buys into what we buy into at Armanino.”
Travis Wolff’s 12 partners and approximately 120 employees are expected to join Armanino as part of the deal.
“This combination is the result of thoughtful consideration about our firm’s future growth,” Travis Wolff managing partner Perry Kaufman said in a statement. “Armanino is the perfect fit for us, both in client service approach and firm culture. Our clients and staff will greatly benefit from the deep bench of expertise Armanino brings with its wide breadth of industry experience and new innovative solutions we can now offer our clients.”
Armanino plans to retain Travis Wolff’s existing office in Dallas. Armanino already has several offices across California, in addition to locations in Oregon and Illinois.
“They have a strong high net worth and real estate practice that we’re excited about,” said Armanino.
Both firms are members of the Moore Stephens network and have known each other for a while, according to Armanino. He and Kaufman once attended a Harvard leadership program together.
“That was a great experience because we could tell we were very much aligned in what we wanted to do,” he said. “We look at clients a little differently from some folks. We’re all about them and not about what we want to sell them. It’s about what they need to hopefully move the ball forward.”
Travis Wolff currently doesn’t have an extensive technology consulting practice as Armanino’s firm does, but he is eager to expand the practice in Dallas. “They do a little bit today, they’re just starting, but we think we can really supercharge that practice,” he said.
