Earned Wealth, a New York-based financial services firm that caters to health care professionals like doctors, dentists, veterinarians and podiatrists, has acquired Chahal & Associates, a tax and accounting firm based in Hercules, California.
The acquisition will add Chahal's client base of approximately 2,500 doctors, business owners and high net worth professionals to Earned Wealth. Earned received a $200 million capital commitment last July led by growth equity investors Summit Partners and Silversmith Capital Partners with participation from existing investors Juxtapose, Hudson Structured Capital Management, and Breyer Capital. Earned now counts over 5,500 doctors, practices and medical enterprises among its clients, providing services such as wealth management, investments, retirement plans, tax compliance and planning, accounting and payroll, with over $2.3 billion in assets under management.
Financial terms of the deal with Chahal & Associates were not disclosed, nor were current revenue figures for either firm. However, Earned plans to reach $150 million in revenue in three years. Earned has six partners and 124 staff for a total of 130 employees, while Chahal has three partners and 32 staff members, totaling 35 employees.
"Earned launched three years ago, with the mission to be the only financial services partner a doctor or their practice would ever need," Earned Wealth CEO John Clendening told Accounting Today.
"We've been on a mission to reach as many doctors as we can because we know that when we work with them, we will improve their outcomes," he added. "We've also embarked, as of last June, on what we think is a really interesting redefinition of an acquisition strategy around accounting and tax firms and other firms as well."
Clendening was formerly CEO of
Chahal & Associates was founded by CEO Navjeet Chahal in 2003, focusing on health care professionals as well as business owners and high net worth individuals as clients. "Our core focus is health care, that is, doctors, dentists and veterinarians," he told Accounting Today. "We felt they were so busy, and they needed somebody who could take care of their financial aspects for them. We help them with their accounting, tax services and so on."
By joining up with Earned, he is able to offer them more comprehensive services such as financial planning, wealth management and education savings plans. He will remain with Earned as a managing director.
Most of Chahal's client base is within California, mainly in the Bay area, but he also has clients from out of state. The combined firm has clients in over 35 states. Last year, Earned acquired Thomas Doll, a multiservice firm that focuses on doctors' practices and is also based on the West Coast, in Walnut Creek, California.
However, Clendening is aiming to build a nationwide firm. "We're adding new states all the time," he said.
Earned is not only adding accounting firms, but other types of financial services firms as well. "We look to keep scaling up," said Clendening. "It's great to get where we are with Chahal & Associates, and we're looking forward to keep on adding so we can extend our reach, including new services, all focused on bringing in another set of firms that are good, well run firms, client focused, to ensure our vision that the doctor does better financially when they're served by a specialist that really understands them and their career dynamics."
