By Gundi Jeffrey
The Bottom Line
http://www.thebottomlinenews.ca/index.php?section=article&articleid=397
No less than three of Canada's larger accounting firms and associations have taken steps to beef up their presence in the country's business community, hoping to win market share from both their peers and the Big Four.
BDO Dunwoody LLP recently completed two mergers, effective July 1, in Calgary and Kitchener, Ont., significantly boosting their forces in those regions.
"With these mergers," says BDO's CEO Keith Farlinger, "we believe that, for fiscal 2009, we will again lead the top six (firms) in percentage growth." BDO had already achieved that for fiscal 2008 and, Farlinger believes, "in Canada, there are really only six firms that are truly national and international organizations. We don't see any of the other mergers that are happening challenging the top six firms."
Collins Barrow National Co-operative is taking a shot it, however. Already in eighth place in The Bottom Line's Accounting Top 30, its Toronto office just merged with Smith Nixon LLP to create what Toronto managing partner Harry Blum describes as "the first mid-market merger of its size in the past 25 years, bucking the typical takeover trend of the six national firms."
Effective July 1, the new Collins Barrow Toronto office consists of 22 partners and more than 130 staff to service what Blum says is the biggest public entity practice of the mid-market firms in Toronto.
Meanwhile, DFK Canada claims that the recent addition of a new member in Saskatoon will propel it into 8th place in The Bottom Line's Top 30 rankings. Hergott Duval Stack LLP (HDS), one of the largest independent accounting firms in Saskatchewan, decided to join the DFK association over several other contenders to, according to managing partner Blair Davidson, "extend our reach to over 80 countries and provide a solid platform on which to develop our firm's national and international practice."
This new affiliation, says Laura Varga, executive director of DKF Canada, gives the group the distinction of being "Canada's only chartered accounting association that has coast-to-coast coverage, with member firms in every province."
The Smith Nixon deal restores Collins Barrow to the position of strength it held before its Toronto-based Mintz & Partners affiliate jumped ship to merge with Deloitte & Touche LLP January 2008, leaving Collins Barrow without Toronto representation.
At that time, Collins Barrow CEO Lionel Goldman swore it wouldn't be too long before the firm would roar back bigger and better than ever to retake the Toronto market.
Last year's late-summer merger with DMCT LLP was a step in that direction. DMCT had, Goldman said at the time, "a market-leading reputation in the area of public markets and transaction advisory services" and was "an industry leader with a recognized and respected brand."
The new merger with Smith Nixon builds on that strength, says Blum, and has "helped us achieve our strategic vision of becoming the dominant mid-market firm in Toronto. We wanted the Toronto firm to become Collins Barrow's flagship - we felt that, after the Mintz merger with Deloitte, this union would make a statement."
John Sinclair, the Smith Nixon partner who helped put the deal together, stresses that the merger was no easy feat to pull off, taking nine months to complete, "which is why you rarely see a merger of equals such as ours." He adds it is difficult to find candidates with shared visions and values, and it's even more difficult to give up control. According to Blum, "it's easie