Pinellas accounting firms Spoor Bunch Franz, Westbay CPAs to merge

Two well known Tampa Bay accounting companies are merging into 1.

St. Petersburg’s Spoor Bunch Franz and Clearwater’s Westbay CPAs are joining forces to sort one particular organization with extra than 100 staff, the companies declared Friday.

Whilst Spoor Bunch Franz is a entire-company accounting organization, Westbay’s concentrate is forensic accounting and business enterprise valuation, like work on troubles ranging from divorces and court cases to mergers and acquisitions.

Spoor Bunch Franz controlling husband or wife Prosperous Franz claimed his business had referred a lot of clientele to Westbay around the years, as the firms’ providers seriously did not overlap at all.

“Most people today feel of accountants as accountants, and most persons tend to imagine of general public accountants as executing tax perform,” he reported. “But it is completely independent, and which is the beauty of this merger. Westbay did not provide any traditional accounting expert services. They really don’t do any tax get the job done. They never do any traditional accounting-form companies or audit-variety work. And then on the other stop, SBF did not do any of the forensic accounting or enterprise valuation-sort do the job that Westbay specializes in. It’s a full incorporate-on of additional companies that the merged crew can now present.”

The merger formally took location Jan. 1, with Westbay owner David Harper joining Spoor Bunch Franz’s executive staff as an equity lover. Other monetary terms had been not disclosed.

The providers will function below their individual respective manufacturers for a while, Franz said, but the business will glimpse at put together branding, like a achievable renaming, in the coming months.

Westbay’s Clearwater office will remain open, giving Spoor Bunch Franz a 3rd area, along with its workplaces in St. Petersburg and Tampa. Franz claimed Westbay’s complete personnel of five would make the transfer, with no cuts planned. In point, he stated, the company intends to increase headcount.

“We both see it as a progress opportunity for Westbay and SBF,” he stated. “It’s variety of the reverse of a conventional merger, the place you are seeking for efficiencies in the numbers you are minimizing. We’re truly on the lookout to maximize that workforce more than the upcoming year, introducing at minimum a single or two much more to be able to manage the progress that we anticipate will occur at Westbay.”