A strong public audit practice and new requirements under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act have helped create more public clients for Crowe Chizek & Co. LLC than any other regional firm, the company said.

Crowe Chizek, with offices in South Bend and Indianapolis, audits 108 public clients. That’s 28 more than Malone & Bailey in Houston, which ranked No. 2 on a list recently compiled by AuditAnalytics.com and published in the Public Accounting Report.

Firm executives told the Indianapolis Business Journal that regional firms are becoming an attractive option to the Big Four. Since the Sarbanes-Oxley Act barred accounting firms from providing both audit and nonaudit services to the same client, regional firms are better able to compete for Securities and Exchange Commission clients.

"There's been a great deal of market disruption as it relates to corporate governance," said Kevin McGrath, managing executive of Crowe Chizek's financial institutions group. "Based on the restrictions, we've become a pretty good alternative."

The Big Four firms, in many cases, are dropping audit work in exchange for the more lucrative consulting services. Also, the firms are spending more time and resources with their big clients because of the stricter requirements. The smaller clients may be dropped, or the smaller public companies may start looking for less-expensive services. Regional firms are stepping in to fill the gap.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act is more than doubling accounting costs for companies with less than $3 billion in annual revenue, according to an estimate released last year by the Foley & Lardner law firm in Chicago.

For the fiscal year ending March 2003, Crowe Chizek recorded $247.3 million in annual revenue, making it the eighth-largest firm in the country.

Crowe Chizek's 108 publicly traded clients consist mainly of Indiana financial institutions such as Mainsource Financial Group in Greensburg, German American Bancorp in Jasper and First Financial Corp. in Terre Haute.

When public companies start looking beyond the Big Four, they’re going to look at Crowe Chizek or other regional firms, said Public Accounting Report Editor Jonathan Hamilton. "If you're a regional player like Crowe, this is a good time."