Private Equity
A collection of articles, industry insights, and case studies examining how private equity is reshaping professional services firms. The collection explores acquisitions, carve-outs, platform strategies, governance changes, operating model shifts, and the growing tension between traditional partnership structures and capital-backed growth models.
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Case Study 34: Grant Thornton Australia and the Real Economics of Private Equity in Professional Services
1. June 2026
Private equity entering professional services is no longer a theoretical discussion. Over the past several years, accounting, tax and advisory firms have increasingly explored external capital, alternative practice structures, platform consolidation and sponsor-backed expansion models. The pattern is now visible across Grant Thornton, Baker Tilly, Citrin Cooperman, MHA, Interpath, Vialto and multiple regional accounting roll-ups.
The Regulated Trust Layer: How Private Equity Is Separating Audit From the Economic Platform Around It
25. May 2026
The audit partner still signs the opinion. The local audit partnership still exists legally. The firm still presents itself externally as a partnership of professionals operating under regulatory oversight, professional standards and independence requirements. In many jurisdictions, the structure still formally complies with rules requiring licensed CPAs or equivalent professionals to own and control the
Case Study 32: PwC, Vialto, and the Private Equity Constraint Shift in Professional Services
17. May 2026
In October 2021, PwC agreed to sell its Global Mobility Tax and Immigration Services business to Clayton, Dubilier & Rice. PwC described the unit as a global leader in employee tax, immigration, business travel, mobility managed services, and payroll solutions for multinational organizations. Reuters reported that the deal valued the business at approximately $2.2 billion,
Case Study 31: BDO’s Third Way – The Accounting Network Trying to Stay Independent While Learning to Live With Private Capital
11. May 2026
For a while, BDO looked like the firm that might give the professional services industry a clean counter-narrative. Grant Thornton had moved into private equity-backed consolidation. Baker Tilly US had accepted external capital. Moore Global had member firms benefiting from sponsor-backed growth. But BDO seemed to be drawing a line. In October 2025, BDO announced
Case Study 30: Afileon – How Private Capital Enters a Protected Profession Without Owning It
6. May 2026
For decades, the German tax advisory market was not simply fragmented. It was deliberately engineered to remain so. More than 100,000 licensed tax advisors operating across roughly 55,000 firms created a system that prioritized independence, continuity, and professional judgment over scale. Ownership was tightly restricted to qualified professionals, effectively excluding external capital and preventing the
Case Study 29: When the Firm No Longer Owns Its Talent – PwC vs Unity
27. April 2026
Professional services firms have long operated on a simple but rarely questioned assumption. They do not just employ talent. They contain it. Over decades, partners build client relationships inside the firm, convert those relationships into revenue, and accumulate economic value through profit participation, deferred compensation, and retirement structures that can reach several million dollars. The
The Next Decade: Twelve Predictions for the Big 10 in Professional Services
23. April 2026
The next decade will not be a normal cycle. It will feel like pressure building inside a structure that was never designed to absorb it. Not a sudden shock, but a slow accumulation of forces that no longer cancel each other out. For a long time, the Big 10 operated in a fragile equilibrium. Partnerships
The Exit Problem: Private Equity Has Found Ways Into Professional Services. Getting Out Is Harder
16. April 2026
Private equity has spent the last decade dismantling one of the most persistent assumptions in professional services: that partnership-based firms are structurally resistant to external capital. What began as isolated investments has evolved into a pattern, and then into momentum. In the United States alone, private equity firms have taken stakes in an increasing share
Breaking Partnerships: The Seven Ways Private Equity Is Breaking Into the Big 10
15. April 2026
Private equity is not entering professional services through one front door. It is entering through multiple side doors at once, each designed around a different structural weakness in the partnership model. Sometimes capital buys a firm. Sometimes it buys a capability. Sometimes it builds a challenger from scratch. And sometimes it does not buy anything
Case Study 27: Baker Tilly and Private Equity – When a Network Starts Becoming a Platform
14. April 2026
Originally published April 2026, updated May 2026. Baker Tilly presents itself as a global firm, and by most external measures, it looks like one. The network operates in more than 140 territories, employs more than 50,000 people, and generates global revenues exceeding $5 billion, placing it among the largest accounting and advisory organisations worldwide, while