SYRACUSE — Dermody, Burke & Brown, CPAs, LLC (DB&B ) on Nov. 10 announced it is merging with Kane, Bowles & Moore, P.C., a Liverpool–based accounting and consulting firm. Kane, Bowles & Moore will operate under the Dermody, Burke & Brown name beginning Jan. 1, DB&B said. DB&B didn’t release any financial terms of the […]
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SYRACUSE — Dermody, Burke & Brown, CPAs, LLC (DB&B ) on Nov. 10 announced it is merging with Kane, Bowles & Moore, P.C., a Liverpool–based accounting and consulting firm.
Kane, Bowles & Moore will operate under the Dermody, Burke & Brown name beginning Jan. 1, DB&B said.
DB&B didn’t release any financial terms of the agreement.
“It’s a combination of the two firms, collectively, and we’ll be going forward as one firm under the Dermody, Burke & Brown banner,” says John Tartaglia, a certified public accountant (CPA) and partner in DB&B.
Tartaglia; John Burke, CPA and partner in DB&B; and James Kane, CPA and partner in Kane, Bowles & Moore, discussed the merger with the Business Journal News Network on Nov. 11.
Kane, Bowles & Moore will be relocating to Dermody, Burke & Brown’s Syracuse office in the Franklin Center building at 443 N. Franklin St. in Syracuse. The merged firm will have about 90 employees, including 45 CPAs, says Burke.
The two firms’ cultures “seem to mesh,” says Burke. “We tend to concentrate on closely held family businesses; service is a big aspect of both of the firms.”
Kane, David Bowles, and Jim Moore, the principals in their own firm, will become partners in DB&B when the merger becomes official at the start of 2015, says Kane.
That means the number of partners at DB&B will increase from 15 to 18,.
“Part of our growth strategy in upstate New York is to seek out other qualified, quality firms that may share some of the values and characteristics of our firm for possible merger candidates,” says Burke.
DB&B had identified Kane, Bowles & Moore as a potential candidate for a merger, and the Liverpool firm thought of DB&B in the same manner, Burke adds.
“In our firm, Dave [Bowles], Jim [Moore], and I had to wear many, many hats. Now, we’re going to be able to focus more and specialize more and that’s going to equate to … serving our clients better,” says Kane.
Kane, Bowles & Moore is vacating a 2,400-square-foot office at 209 Second St. in Liverpool in mid-November, says Kane. The firm leases the space from Fargo Properties of Liverpool, LLC.
How it happened
Formal merger discussions started in late 2013, but informal talks started even before that, the parties say.
One of Kane’s partners, Jim Moore, and William Killory, a DB&B partner, are both skiers and knew each other from that activity, says Kane.
Moore and Killory “two ski seasons ago” had been discussing their respective business activity, and, Killory had mentioned to Moore “if you ever have an interest, we [DB&B] have an interest,” as Kane recalled it.
As time passed, Kane and his partners had a conversation with “somebody we respect very highly in Syracuse,” about what firm might be a good fit for a merger with their firm. Kane didn’t name the individual.
That individual had asked about their firm’s plans, and Kane indicated they thought about the firm’s future annually.
“…every year, we think about the fact that we’re all getting a little older … there’s a lot of opportunities that we’ve probably passed up over the years because we didn’t have the resources, and we said who would be a good fit [for a merger],” as Kane recalled it.
The individual recommended Dermody, Burke & Brown, he added.
Jim Kane, David Bowles, and Jim Moore founded the firm that bears their names in 1983. The firm currently has nine employees.
Kane, Bowles & Moore handles accounting work for privately owned businesses, commercial banks, credit unions, construction contractors, and in the retail, nonprofit, and governmental sectors.
Founded in 1956, Dermody, Burke & Brown, is one of the largest, locally owned and independent certified public accounting firms in Central New York. It ranked number seven among CPA firms, ranked by number of CNY CPAs, according to “The List” published in the June 20 issue of The Business Journal.
The firm serves the region from three offices in Syracuse, Auburn, and New Hartford.
More than 75 percent of the firm’s client base includes closely held and family-owned businesses.
Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com