M&A adviser Ira Rosenbloom's observation is less about deals than about decision-making: the influx of private equity capital has intensified competition for quality CPA firms, and smaller firms are increasingly using that interest as a prompt to clarify their strategic direction.
The useful insight is the second part. Getting a call from a consolidator forces a question most firm owners have been deferring — what is this firm actually for, and where is it going?
The three viable answers
Most firms land on one of these, and all three can work:
- Sell into a platform. Take the capital and the multiple, trade autonomy for scale and a solved succession problem.
- Build to stay independent. Invest in the capacity, technology and bench that let a firm compete without outside capital.
- Run to hand over. Optimize for a clean internal or local transition on a defined timeline.
The answer that does not work
Waiting. Not because waiting is lazy, but because the environment is actively changing underneath a firm that stands still — salaries rise, clients get courted, staff get recruited, and technology expectations move.
What the strategic clarity actually requires
Every one of the three paths runs through the same constraint: a firm that cannot reliably deliver its current work does not have the room to execute any strategy.
A firm at capacity cannot take on the growth that raises its multiple. A firm at capacity cannot invest partner time in the technology work that keeps it independent. A firm at capacity cannot train the successor it needs, because everyone including the successor is preparing returns in March.
Capacity is not the strategy. It is the precondition for having one.
That is the practical case for solving preparation capacity first, before deciding anything else: it is the one investment that is not wasted regardless of which future you eventually pick. Whether you sell, stay or hand over, a firm with headroom is worth more and is easier to run than a firm without it.
Rosenbloom is right that the market is forcing the question. The firms that answer it well will be the ones that first bought themselves the room to think.
