Feature Article

11-23-07

Habif, Arogeti & Wynne makes 1st acquisition

By Joe Rauch
Atlanta Business Chronicle
Financial Page

Habif, Arogeti & Wynne LLP is expanding, with its first buyout of another accounting firm in its 55-year history. And it may not be done.

The Sandy Springs-based firm, one of the state’s largest, has agreed to buy Miller, Ray, Houser & Stewart LLP for an undisclosed sum.

The deal increases Habif, Arogeti & Wynne’s accounting staff of 230 by 10 percent, and adds a firm with a public accounting focus.

Dan Simms, Habif, Arogeti & Wynne’s CEO, said the firm’s first buyout is part of a larger expansion plan, aimed at expanding its staff to 400 by 2009.

The deal will also reintroduce the firm to public company accounting.

Simms said Habif, Arogeti & Wynne dabbled in public company work in the late 1990s, working on local, initial public offerings during the dot-com boom.

But that work ceased as high-flying technology stocks crashed earlier this decade.

“We believe there’s a market for work with smaller public companies outside the Big Four accounting firms,” Simms said.

For Wayne Stewart, managing partner of Miller, Ray, Houser & Stewart, his firm’s sale was motivated, in part, by the need to add resources “to better serve our public clients.”

Provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 require more corporate governance and financial monitoring by companies, and that work must then be verified by outside auditors.

The act forced many smaller accounting firms, who couldn’t make the labor-intensive and expensive work profitable, to abandon public company work for private clients.

Stewart said Miller, Ray, Houser & Stewart worked for public companies that generated as much as $300 million in annual sales, but the firm didn’t have the ability to work with potentially larger clients.

“It is a limiting factor,” he said. “Like many of our clients’ service businesses, you need a critical mass to make it work and be effective.”

Habif, Arogeti & Wynne’s newest staff addition will join the firm when it moves into AT&T Wireless’ current offices in Glenridge Highlands early next year.

And Simms said his firm is in talks to combine with another accounting firm early next year, but declined to elaborate.

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