Financial consulting powerhouse EisnerAmper has signed an agreement to acquire Morrison & Morrison, a competitor based out of Chicago.

New York-headquartered EisnerAmper has 3,300-plus employees worldwide who are led by 320 partners. The firm is primarily known for the accounting services it provides to corporations, but it also has a presence in other parts of the consulting ecosystem including the IT services space.

Morrison & Morrison is a smaller player. The firm, which offers a mixed of accounting and business consulting services, has a workforce of about 200 people and a leadership team that consists of 24 partners.

The context for the deal is that EisnerAmper is actively working to grow its revenue and has been looking to scale its presence in Chicago, Morrison & Morrison’s home town, for a while. The deal will pave the firm’s way to the Windy City.

“EisnerAmper was interested in expanding to Chicago for some time but was willing to wait until they found the right firm. Morrison & Morrison is that firm,” remarked Allan Koltin, the header of the M&A consultancy that advised the two firms on the deal.

Morrison & Morrison has been in business for more than half a century. Its client base reflects that fact: the firm works with companies in a broad range of industries including technology, financial services, manufacturing and real-estate.

All those clients will be absorbed into EisnerAmper as part of the transaction.

The deal borrows a page from a playbook that EisnerAmper has already used before as part of its business expansion efforts.

Last year, the firm picked up a Minneapolis-based consultancy called Lurie to grow its presence in the Midwest. Like Morrison & Morrison, Lurie is a midsized accounting firms with a headcount in the low hundreds, a more than 50-year corporate history and clients across many different verticals.

Buying an established firm is a much easier way to establish a presence in a new market than building a team from scratch. One of the reasons for this is that an established firm comes with an established client base, which greatly simplifies the client acquisition process for the acquirer.

EisnerAmper expects to wrap up the purchase of Morrison & Morrison this summer.

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