The Spoor Bunch Franz (SBF) team is thrilled to announce our merger with Clearwater’s Westbay CPAs, a firm dedicated to forensic accounting, value consultation and litigation support services. SBF is bringing aboard all five full-time Westbay employees.
“Adding Westbay to the SBF lineup of services strengthens our ability to offer our clients a one-stop shop,” said SBF managing partner Rich Franz. “It also gives SBF employees the opportunity to consider advisory services as a potential career path.”
Westbay founder David Harper and the SBF partners began exploring a merger late last year. Westbay, founded in 2013, has built a respected practice centered on forensic accounting services, such as providing expert testimony in court cases and dispute resolutions, as well as doing business valuation and helping business owners launch or grow their operations. SBF and Westbay’s long relationship includes a history of referring clients to each other, which means clients at both firms can expect a seamless expansion of services.
“Having everyone from Westbay continue after the merger is critical to the success of the merger,” Rich said. All of Westbay’s existing contact information will remain in place, as will the Westbay name, into 2023.
The merger brings SBF’s employee count into the triple digits, from 99 to 104. Since the start of the pandemic in 2020, we’ve increased our staff by more than 20 percent. SBF has been named a Tampa Bay Business Journal Best Place to Work for the past four years and a Tampa Bay Times Top Workplace for the past three years.
The SBF/Westbay combination going forward allows the firm to help clients:
• Start up and run a business (accounting, tax planning, analytics)
• Improve their business to make it marketable (advisory services)
• Sell their business (broker and valuation services)
• Preserve their wealth after sale (wealth management, financial planning)
We look forward to collaborating with and learning from our new Westbay colleagues in 2023 and beyond!
To learn more about the merger, check out the Tampa Bay Times story on SBF and Westbay.
If you have questions about the merger, email us at info@sbfcpa.com.