Forvis and Mazars launched a global accounting network Monday with a combined $5 billion in revenue, 40,000 employees and nearly 1,800 partners in 103 different countries.
The deal was
As part of the formation, Mazars USA, based in New York, will join Forvis Mazars LLP in the U.S., adding 1,000 more professionals and 14 office locations, bringing the total U.S. locations to more than 80. Forvis Mazars will thereby become the 8th largest public accounting firm in the U.S., with approximate revenue of more than $2 billion and over 7,000 employees. Mazars USA had ranked No. 30 on the list, with $302 million in annual revenue. It grew out of the
The new network will comprise two members: Forvis Mazars LLP in the United States and Forvis Mazars Group SC, an internationally integrated partnership. The network will be governed through a structure that includes a Global Network Board that will be responsible for enabling collaboration and client delivery worldwide.
Hervé Hélias will serve as the first chair of the Global Network Board and will continue to serve as chairman of the Group Executive Board of Forvis Mazars Group, SC (formerly Mazars Group). Matt Snow, chairman of Forvis Mazars LLP (formerly FORVIS LLP) will serve as vice chair of the Global Network Board. In the United States, Tom Watson will continue to serve as CEO of Forvis Mazars, LLP (formerly FORVIS LLP) and will also sit on the Global Network Board. Rob Pruitt, Fran Randall and Tim York from Forvis Mazars, LLP will sit on the Global Network Board. David Chaudat, Pascal Jauffret, Véronique Ryckaert and Phil Verity from Forvis Mazars Group will sit on the Global Network Board.
"Two years ago, when we created Forvis, we told our partners at the time that it was our solution to becoming a truly national firm, but also a gateway to global," Watson told Accounting Today. "We knew that over time we would need to build out a global presence that would help us better serve our clients and better serve our people and their career paths. As we were sharing that news with some of our peers, we shared it with Mazars and they indicated that while they had a really nice presence here in the U.S., they felt like it needed to be even larger to help accomplish their strategy. It made tons of sense for us to consider coming together in a structure that's just like all of our peers in the Big Four and the other top 10 global network setups, where we adopt a common brand and a common approach to serving our clients and sharing tools and technologies."
Mazars USA will therefore be rebranded as well. "The unique thing about our setup is, in our network, we have two members," said Watson. "We have Forvis, and then we have Mazars in their integrated partnership. When we were evaluating the strategy about creating Forvis Mazars, we clearly knew that was the right answer from a global perspective. Then we needed to actually ask ourselves how we were going to operate the organization going forward. And one of the principles that we set up is that we would only have one operating unit in each country. Really the only country where we had significant overlap was in the United States, and so we agreed that as part of creating the global network, that we would have the Mazars USA operation join Forvis and become part of our organization. That would collectively comprise the network's U.S. operations, and then Mazars would continue to operate around the rest of the globe."
Financial terms of the deal between Forvis and Mazars were not disclosed, but neither firm took on any debt, according to Watson.
"This is a momentous and exciting time for our clients, our profession and our people," Hélias said in a statement. "Mazars and Forvis have worked together for over 20 years and share a commitment to delivering an outstanding client experience. We are well positioned to deliver excellence, everywhere, under a single global brand. Clients will get consistent, high-quality, comprehensive services worldwide, and we remain agile and flexible to their specific needs. I am extremely proud to serve as first chair of the Global Network Board. Working together, I am confident that our two firms will continue to empower our people to raise the bar for client service standards, while challenging industry opportunities to support future needs in local markets."
Forvis has grown remarkably since
He sees very limited change in the organizational structure of the U.S. firm, however.
"We'll continue to have similar leaders," said Watson. "There will be some partners from Mazars USA that will join our governing board, and then we have worked to establish our leadership structure across the U.S. geography to make sure that we have the right people in the right seats so that we can really help people achieve great career objectives and take good care of our clients."
The global network may expand even more internationally as well: "I think we'll always be open to additional expansion. With 103 countries we feel like we are in the countries where we need to be, so whether it's here in the U.S. or whether it's other places across the globe, we'll always be looking for ways to continue to improve our position, fill in any any gaps where we might think we could add a skill set or add a location based on what we're hearing from our people and our clients around how we can best serve them."
Unlike the deal with Weiser that led to WeiserMazars eventually becoming Mazars USA, he doesn't anticipate losing the comparatively new Forvis identity anytime soon
"Our plan right now is for our global brand of Forvis Mazars to be in effect for decades," said Watson.
However, the all uppercase capitalization of FORVIS is changing to Forvis.
"Our brand and our name now is Forvis Mazars so as part of creating the network and finalizing our brand identity, we spent a great deal of time deciding what the logo needed to look like, what we wanted our brand message to be, so what we settled on as the logo with a two-tone blue and lowercase is what we'll use worldwide," said Watson. "So the all-caps FORVIS in red is gone. We have now moved into the Forvis Mazars brand. Whether you're in Paris, whether you're in London, whether you're in Johannesburg, or whether you're in Dallas where I am, it will be the Forvis Mazars sign."
Mazars is also now rebranding all of its offices around the world too, and Watson has been receiving photos of the new logo at the top of the longtime Mazars headquarters building in Paris as well as other parts of the network.
"I got goosebumps when Hervé Hélias, the chair of Mazars, sent me a picture of the Forvis Mazars logo on the top of their building in downtown Paris," said Watson. "It was really fun to see our common brand in places around the globe. We're getting pictures of that today. Here's what it looks like in London. Here's what it looks like in Berlin and so forth."
Watson sees many more opportunities ahead for the network. "We have just launched it so we've got a lot of opportunities in front of us to find ways to continue to collaborate on common tools and methodologies to invest together on things like AI or audit methodology or other technological advances that will help us compete and best serve our clients," said Watson. "As of today, it's a matter of making sure that we launch the network effectively, that we create all of the ways that we can work together with our clients, and then over time, we'll look at continuing to evolve to meet the needs of the situation in front of us."
"We're very excited about where we are," he added. "We like the fact that this is our unique solution to succeeding in a very dynamic marketplace for accounting firms these days. And we like the way that it positions us for the years to come and solidifies our relevance as a top tier professional services firm."
