One of the Austin, TX region’s largest accounting firms has merged with a 33-year-old Houston firm. Austin-based PMB Helin Donovan LLP has merged with Houston-based McEvoy & Co. The union takes effect immediately and will operate under the PMB Helin Donovan name.

 

“This expands our footprint in one of the most vibrant and business-friendly cities in the nation,” said Tom Wilkinson, CPA, managing partner for PMB Helin Donovan. “We performed a great amount of due diligence before determining our firms would meld well together. We’re confident this will help better serve our clients and the clients of McEvoy & Co.”

 

PMB Helin Donovan has had an emerging presence in the Houston market since opening a branch in 2006. All of McEvoy & Co.’s employees will become a part of PMB Helin Donovan, with the combined Houston presence of 20 employees.

 

Houston operations will be led by the partnership team of Chase McEvoy and John Thayer from McEvoy & Co. and Mickey O’Neal and David Forrest, the existing audit partners in Houston for PMB Helin Donovan. Both McEvoy and Thayer have been named partners with PMB Helin Donovan.

 

Tom Wilkinson, managing partner with PMB Helin Donovan, anticipates the transition to go smoothly. "We've gone to great lengths to ensure there will be no disruptions to service," Wilkinson told AccountingWEB. "This process began many months ago, and we've been diligently preparing so that the merge is seamless for our clients."

 

McEvoy & Co. was founded by McEvoy in 1978, and the firm provides tax, accounting, and business consulting services. It is highly regarded in the Houston area for its work in tax preparation and consulting to the medical and dental industries. To accommodate the growth associated with the merger, PMB Helin Donovan is expanding its office space at 3 Greenway Plaza, and will also retain the McEvoy office in the Galleria area.

 

"The combined firm will offer extraordinary strength in its specialty services, and an instant ability to support clients with national and international needs,” McEvoy said.

 

"One of the main reasons behind the merge was that the two firms have complimentary strengths, and each client bse should benefit positively from the new union," Wilkinson added.

 

McEvoy notes PMB Helin Donovan is a PCAOB-registered and inspected firm. The firm has specialty service niches in employee benefit plan audits and internal controls, and industry niches with publicly traded companies, private companies, not for profit organizations in the healthcare, life sciences, technology, financial services, insurance, energy, oil and gas exploration and production industries. With clients in more than 30 countries on six different continents, PMB Helin Donovan is able to perform work across the globe.

 

With 33 CPAs and 50 professionals in the Austin office, PMB Helin Donovan ranks as Austin’s second-largest locally based accounting firm, according to the Austin Business Journal’s “2011 Book of Lists.” The firm has more than 100 employees in its seven offices in: Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle and Spokane. PMB Helin Donovan was recognized as one of the best places to work in 2010 by both the Austin American-Statesman and Austin Business Journal.