S3 Ep13 - M&A Lessons from an Accounting Firm Broker of 20 Years with Brannon Poe

Our guest this week is Brannon Poe, the founder of Poe Group Advisors (PGA) who are brokers in the accounting firm space to talk all things M&A - from trends, to things that have gone wrong and everything in between.

Brannon has been brokering accounting firms for two decades and has grown to a team of 20 people, having helped facilitate hundreds of deals all over the US and Canada. PGA helps firm owners buy, sell and grow their business and have thousands of qualified buyers in their database. Brannon is a thought leader and author of several books in the accounting space as well as the Accounting Practice Academy.

We cover:

• [11:40] What does a business broker or CPA Intermediary in the accounting space like Brannon, really do?
• [15:10] How do you find firms that are on the acquisition side?
• [16:42] How did you get started as a business broker and what does your firm look like now?
• [20:50] What are some of the trends in deals that you are seeing so far in 2024? Increase in private equity buyers
• [25:32] In private equity deals, how are they being structured? Valuations, deal terms
• [28:25] Outside of private equity, what other trends are you seeing in 2024?
• [30:19] Are you seeing an increase in ageing accounting firm owners that are looking to exit and retire in the next 10 years? “The silver tsunami”
• [31:52] Have you ever sold a firm where the seller isn’t really motivated to sell?
• [35:10] What happens when there are multiple partners and a couple want to sell but one doesn’t want to and slows the deal down?
• [37:00] A story of a husband & wife team that sold to a brother & sister team
• [39:50] Listed a multi-franchise firm that went wrong at the last minute, were there any red flags present earlier in the process?
• [41:48] What’s the worst employee issue that you’ve seen come up in a deal?
• [45:08] What’s the smoothest deal you’ve seen?
• [46:35] What’s the most frustrating part of deal making?
• [50:35] Any potentially dirty tactics that sellers should look out for?
• [51:56] Helpful resources - “How to prepare your CPA practice for sale”, “How to scale your cloud accounting practice” if you are looking to sell one day, “how to take an unplugged vacation” for firm owners - find them here

You can connect with Brannon on Linkedin or via the Poe Group Advisors website.

Meryl was featured on the Marketing For Accounting Firms Podcast recently - listen here on the topic of Minimal Viable Branding for Accounting Firms.

Brannon also interviewed Meryl on his podcast - Accountant’s Flight Plan. Listen here to that episode on Navigating Growth, Niching Down and Other Helpful Lessons.

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by sponsors:

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The Lifestyle Accountant Show is a podcast that helps today’s accounting firm leaders build successful businesses while living healthy, happy lives hosted by Meryl Johnston.