Cherry Bekaert, a Top 30 Firm based in Raleigh, North Carolina, has acquired Cordia Partners, a provider of outsourced accounting, business advisory, technology and business process consulting services, plus its executive recruiting arm, Cordia Resources, the latest in a string of M&A deals since Cherry Bekaert received private equity funding.
Cordia Partners and Cordia Resources combined have over 250 employees, including four to six partners, and approximately $48 million in total annual revenue. Cherry Bekaert has over 2,000 staff and 160-plus partners. With this acquisition, Cherry Bekaert will have $541 million in pro forma revenue for calendar year 2023. Cherry Bekaert ranked No. 29 on Accounting Today's 2023 list of the Top 100 Firms.
Cordia has three offices in the Washington, D.C. metro area and the deal will bolster Cherry Bekaert's position in the market and support local growth for the firm's service lines. Cordia Resources' recruiting and staffing business for local and national clients will also create a new service line for Cherry Bekaert.
The deal started thanks to Susan Moser, a Cherry Bekaert partner and client market lead in the D.C. metro area, who has known Cordia Partners managing partner Mitchell Weintraub for a long time, he recalled.
"We ran into each other about a year ago, and because of that relationship, we had a discussion that really centered around how there's a lot of exciting things going on at Cherry Bekaert, and we know that Cordia is growing and could be a decent opportunity for both firms to sit down and have a discussion," said Weintraub. "We thought there was a cultural fit that had a lot of trust interwoven and collectively we could do something special. That's what really got us started down the path. We weren't looking to do a transaction, just really build upon a longstanding relationship that was fostered in the Washington, D.C. metro area."
Cherry Bekaert Advisory CEO Michelle Thompson noted that culture is extremely important at her firm, but she also saw strategic reasons for acquiring Cordia. "The type of work that Cordia does around outsourced accounting services, staffing and resources was an area that we had strategically identified as a place that we wanted to expand and increase our critical mass," she said. "We were very fortunate to be able to find a way to make this work and then have Mitch be the leader of that service for us nationally. It was very much one of our strategic targets in the service area, and we were just glad to find that we have a cultural fit. We're in a similar location in terms of a history together, and we're excited to take what they've been able to do in the Washington market to a more national market."
Clearsight Advisors acted as sole financial advisor to Cordia on the deal.
It's the latest M&A transaction since Cherry Bekaert
The Cordiant deal provides a way for the firm to add executive search, recruiting and temporary staffing services to its portfolio.
"Recruiting and staffing is a new service offering, but the bottom line is it basically will help Cherry Bekaert locally and their national client base and our national client base with unmet client needs in the outsourced accounting, recruiting and staffing area and further build out the advisory capabilities," said Weintraub.
Cordiant mainly helps with recruiting and staffing in the accounting and finance field, but has been growing in other sectors as well. "In the past few years, we've built our capabilities in the human resources area, and we're slowly building out capabilities in IT staffing," said Weintraub. "But accounting is number one, and that's the lion's share."
The deal will expand Cherry Bekaert's existing presence in the D.C. area. "It's always good to have that critical mass in the Washington, D.C., metro market," said Thompson.
Weintraub said the deal would make it a Top 10 Firm in the D.C. metro area.
Thompson anticipates more M&A deals in the future. "We do have an active pipeline," she said. "It's not just identification. It's also integration and making sure the collective is one firm going forward."
