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Godspeed
Aside from when the world was falling apart during covid, I've never seen our partners as stressed as they are now (a couple years into PE). There's not been any big sudden change, just feels like everything is being squeezed tighter. Like we're all oranges and they're trying to get every drop of juice out.
TC1 because they had to. Facing a mountain of retirement obligations that the firms can’t support. Which is why they started with buyouts.
Welcome to my life. I'm sorry to see you here.
Yup. If it’s bad now, unfortunately it will get worse after the PE deal
Greedy partners sold their souls along with the profession.
Mmmm nothing like some good Crowe stew 🍲 🐦
Yep
We’re all cooked.
Am I cooked? Got an interview there lol
Director 1, you should refer me to your company :)
After going through this last year, I would say 100% yes.
Yes a ton of changes, they are extremely hard on utilization metrics and are working all employees until they drive them into the ground. Our whole practice is burnt out and no partners seems to take a step back and assess how to solve the issue. The firm is still in a recovery phase and I don’t feel that the PE has added anything or invested in improvements that they promised.
Prayers
Agreed
PE over here has pros and cons. We are investing in human resources and technology that are severely lacking for a firm our size. But the pressure to hit certain targets, the velocity of the acquisition of new firms, and growth of outsourcing is stressful. Also a lot more risk aversion so many administrative things that used to be left to someone's judgment now have onerous procedures.
I wish GTs overlords were investing in human resources. Mostly they just keep doing quarterly layoffs destroying all my teams and spend their "investment capital" buying foreign GT subsidiaries to increase their profit while letting US operations languish.
Run
No! Take time to see what happens...
yes. My firm just had an acquisition (oh sorry “merger”) with a firm doing PE
Maybe it’ll be sustainable in the long term but definitely not now unfortunately
FWIW, I was a senior manager at a small local office that got acquired by a large (top 15) PE backed firm a few years ago.
So far, it’s been good for my career and I’ve seen a lot more good than bad on my office’s combination.
C4- it’s helped our recruiting efforts, it’s helped our business development efforts, it’s helped our technology advancements, and it’s forced some processes on us that probably should have been forced years ago. It’s also given us access to technical resources who can guide us quickly on complex topics that would’ve taken much more time to research before. Public accounting has always been a profession focused on productivity and realization and I haven’t seen PE try to squeeze more out of us like others suggest.
How many places are you going to make the same post?
The investment and ownership profile obviously changes. Should you aspire to a lead role you don’t have to accumulate capital to do so in a PE backed but nor do you have capital invested on which to make a return. With inevitable staff churn the culture shifts from entrepreneurial to administrative. Before too long the PE backed firm starts to fall behind as it can’t compete with more agile regional firms on smaller work while having insufficient quality of brand to work on top tier .
I’ve seen investment advisor reports for PE investing in professional services and they didn’t cover this fundamental very well in their commentary.
Unfortunately yes. PE squeezes. Will feel like a B4 before too long.
Why is this a bad thing? Might be good for everyone involved.
What is so bad about PE?
Because the returns are lower for the people who are left running the business, the dynamic entrepreneurs leave and the lumbering corporate admin moves in. They can’t inspire teams to deliver new developments and opportunities. But they sure as hell can aggressively chase timesheets, billing and cash while lumbering around new opportunities like a pig on a unicycle.
Sure are.
Good luck. Love that you guys aren’t looking for a “merger of equals”. Wonder who that’s about.