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11-23-07
Habif, Arogeti & Wynne makes 1st acquisition
By Joe Rauch
Atlanta
Business Chronicle
Financial Page
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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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