Carr, Riggs & Ingram, a Top 25 Firm based in Enterprise, Alabama, has added CapinCrouse, a Regional Leader based in Indianapolis, effective Jan. 17, 2025.

The deal is CRI’s biggest merger in its history, and the first since it received outside investment last November from Centerbridge Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners. 

CapinCrouse focuses on exclusively serving nonprofits, such as faith-based  organizations and private colleges. The merger will add 40 partners, 185 professionals and 15 offices to CRI, which has 437 partners and 2,304 staff 

After the outside investment, CRI split its attest and non-attest practices, as is common when accounting firms receive private equity or venture capital funding. Carr, Riggs & Ingram, L.L.C., as an independent licensed CPA firm, is providing assurance, attest and audit services. CRI Advisors, LLC (including its subsidiary entities) operates as a separate legal entity, providing clients with tax and business consulting services.  

“This merger represents an exciting milestone in our firm’s history and a significant  advancement for both CRI and CapinCrouse,” said CRI Advisors LLC chairman Bill Carr in a statement Tuesday. “We have previously invested in firms that specialize in serving faith-based  organizations and private colleges. With the addition of CapinCrouse, CRI is now  positioned to become the leading national provider in these vital markets. By combining  our strengths, we will enhance the value we offer and greatly expand our national  geographical presence. We are proud to welcome CapinCrouse to the CRI family.” 

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. CRI ranked No. 24 on Accounting Today‘s 2024 list of the Top 100 Firms, with $455.36 million in annual revenue. CapinCrouse ranked No. 27 on Accounting Today‘s Regional Leaders list of the Top Firms in the Great Lakes region, with $35.51 million in annual revenue.

“We are very pleased to join CRI,” said Fran Brown, Managing Partner of CapinCrouse. “For  over 50 years, our focus has been on providing innovative service to nonprofit  organizations whose outcomes are measured in lives changed. CRI’s commitment to client service, respect, and integrity is an excellent fit with our mission and firm culture. We will  continue to operate under the CapinCrouse brand and are excited to now have access to  more offerings and resources to further drive exceptional client service.” 

Koltin Consulting Group CEO Allan Koltin advised both firms on the merger. “It is interesting to note that this is CRI’s biggest M&A deal in its history, and it comes on the heels of their private equity deal with Centerbridge Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners,” he said in a statement. “CapinCrouse, a top 125 firm nationally, is viewed by many as the preeminent firm in the country when it comes to the audit and related advisory  services of nonprofits and religious organizations. My intuition suggests that going forward, we will see CRI expanding its geographic reach nationally by combining with more top 200 firms.” 

Last August, CRI added ProSport CPA, a firm in New Kent County, Virginia, offering tax and accounting services within the sports and entertainment niche. In 2023, CRI expanded into Oklahoma by adding Stanfield + O’Dell PC, a firm in Tulsa. CRI expanded to South Carolina in 2022 by adding Lanning Group LLC, a firm based in Mount Pleasant in the Charleston suburbs, and expanded in Florida by adding Alonso & Garcia, a firm in Miami. It expanded that year in Florida by adding Travani & Richter in Jupiter, and in Texas by adding Pharr Bounds LLP in Austin.

In 2022, CapinCrouse acquired the Global Center for Nonprofit Excellence.

President Donald Trump named Mark Uyeda, a Republican member of the Securities and Exchange Commission, as acting chairman of the SEC, while confirmation hearings await for Trump’s official pick as chairman, Paul Atkins.

Uyeda has been an SEC commissioner since 2022 and a member of the staff since 2006. Last month, he discussed at an AICPA & CIMA conference in Washington how the SEC is likely to pursue a more deregulatory approach during the Trump administration. The previous SEC chair, Gary Gensler, has pursued an active approach to enforcement and rulemaking, provoking opposition and a wave of lawsuits from the financial industry. A few weeks after the election, Gensler announced plans to step down on Jan. 20, Inauguration Day. 

“I am honored to serve in this capacity after serving as a Commissioner since 2022, and a member of the staff since 2006,” Uyeda said in a statement Monday. “I have great respect for the knowledge, expertise and experience of the agency and its people. The SEC has a vital mission—protecting investors, maintaining fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitating capital formation—that plays a key role in promoting innovation, jobs creation, and the American Dream.”

Last month, Trump named Paul Atkins, a former SEC commissioner, as a replacement for Gensler. Atkins has been a proponent of cryptocurrency, while Gensler had imposed steep penalties on companies in the crypto industry. Confirmation hearings have not yet begun for Atkinds, but he has been meeting with lawmakers privately and is expected to be confirmed.

As acting chairman, Uyeda announced Monday that he would be launching a crypto task force dedicated to developing a comprehensive and clear regulatory framework for crypto assets. The task force will be led by another Republican commissioner, Hester Peirce. 

The task force plans to collaborate with SEC staff and the public to set the SEC on a regulatory path as opposed to pursuing enforcement actions to regulate crypto “retroactively and reactively,” according to a news release.

“This undertaking will take time, patience and much hard work,” Peirce said in a statement. “It will succeed only if the Task Force has input from a wide range of investors, industry participants, academics and other interested parties. We look forward to working hand-in-hand with the public to foster a regulatory environment that protects investors, facilitates capital formation, fosters market integrity, and supports innovation.”

The task force plans to hold roundtables in the future, but in the meantime is asking for public input at [email protected].  

Accountants and other financial professionals in the U.S. are showing more signs of confidence in the economy, according to a new survey, but optimism is waning in other parts of the world.

The quarterly Global Economic Conditions Survey, released Tuesday by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants and the Institute of Management Accountants, polled a group of more than 1,800 finance professionals and found a large decline in confidence in the fourth quarter of 2024 across the globe. However, economic confidence increased for the second consecutive quarter in the U.S., while plunging in Canada, the United Kingdom and Western Europe.

Confidence in Western Europe is at its weakest level since the third quarter of 2022, while U.K. confidence is at a record low, perhaps due to recent announcements of large tax increases ahead for employers in the U.K. budget. 

The report also found significant declines in confidence in the Asia Pacific region and North America, amid concerns about the Chinese economy and threatened increases in U.S. tariffs. 

Globally, there was a sharp deterioration in the Employment Index part of the survey, while, on the positive side, there were small gains in the forward-looking New Orders Index and the Capital Expenditure Index. Cost pressures no longer appear to be elevated by historical standards in most parts of the world, although Western Europe appears to be an outlier, with nearly three-fourths of respondents reporting increased costs last quarter. 

“The global economy proved quite resilient in 2024, aided by the strength of the U.S. economy,” said ACCA chief economist Jonathan Ashworth in a statement. “The greater resilience of the Global New Orders and Capital Expenditure indices would suggest that the global economy is not set to lurch downwards imminently. Nevertheless, while the Global Confidence Index can at times be volatile, its sharp decline attests to the significant nervousness among companies, given the enormous uncertainty at the current juncture. Against such a backdrop, there are significant downside risks to global growth over the coming year.”

Accountants listed their top three risk priorities at the end of 2024. Economic risks remained the highest priority for the second year in a row,, while talent scarcity, regulatory change and cybersecurity ranked much closer to the top than in the fourth quarter of 2023.

Responses in Q4 2024 showed noteworthy regional and sectoral nuances. For example, Central and Eastern Europe was the only region to rank cybersecurity as its highest risk priority, while talent scarcity was seen as the most important in the Asia Pacific region and Western Europe. South Asia and North America also stood out for keeping geopolitics among their top three risk priorities.

“Confidence in the U.S. registered a reasonable gain after a large increase previously and is now slightly above its historical average,” said Alain Mulder, senior director of Europe operations and global special projects at IMA, in a statement. “There were also improvements in the other key indicators by varying degrees. This is clearly an encouraging sign, because the U.S. is the only major engine of the global economy where activity is showing significant resilience at the present time.”