RSM US LLP has signed an agreement to add the leaders and staff of SecureState, a security and privacy consulting firm based in Cleveland, and acquire substantially all of its assets.
The transaction is expected to close March 1, subject to certain terms and conditions. Financial terms were not disclosed, but SecureState had revenues last year of $10 million. RSM US had annual revenue of $1.98 billion and ranked 5th on Accounting Today’s 2017 list of the Top 100 Firms.
As part of the deal, SecureState founder and CEO Ken Stasiak will join RSM as a consulting principal, along with more than 50 employees, who will remain in the firm’s existing offices in Cleveland. RSM US has 799 partners, 7,079 professionals and 1,683 other employees, for a total of 9,560 employees.
The transaction will expand RSM’s consulting practice and presence in the Ohio market, adding SecureState’s information security expertise.
“Our expertise and service offerings represent a perfect fit for RSM’s growing security and privacy practice,” Stasiak said in a statement. “We are excited to join the foremost provider of consulting services to middle market leaders, and we look forward to continuing to serve our client base while at the same time helping RSM’s many clients achieve stronger levels of security within their businesses.”
The firm specializes has an incident response lab that deals with security problems such as data breaches.
“Consulting has been an area of rapid growth for RSM during the last several years,” said RSM US managing partner and CEO Joe Adams in a statement. “I am constantly impressed by the team’s ability to innovate and stay ahead of the changing needs of our clients. We are particularly pleased to expand our ability to provide security and privacy consulting solutions, and we look forward to the knowledge and expertise the SecureState team will bring to our firm.”
Koltin Consulting Group CEO Allan D. Koltin advised both firms on the combination. “This was a real coup for RSM and will help to significantly expand their security and privacy consulting practice," he said. "Secure State was sought after both by many national accounting and consulting firms as well as private equity groups. Ken Stasiak is an incredible visionary and entrepreneur and he and his team will thrive in RSM.”
