Malin, Bergquist & Company, LLC
For more than 40 years, Malin, Bergquist & Company, LLP has provided high-end tax, audit and accounting services to manufacturing and other business clients in western Pennsylvania, as well as to high net worth individuals.
The certified public accounting firm has grown steadily by building its reputation as one of Erie’s oldest and largest firms.
Now, with two mergers in the past year, Malin Bergquist can also count itself among the region’s “largest” and “fastest growing” financial companies.
In February 2007, the firm joined with Deluzio, Teems & Anzovino (DTA) in Westmoreland County outside Pittsburgh, and six months later, with Diefenbach, Delio, Kearney & DeDionisio (DDK&D) in Erie County. These alliances have expanded the firm’s presence to 17 partners and more than doubled its work force to 100 employees, including nine certified valuation analysts and certified fraud examiners.
“We originally set out on this quest seven years ago to grow the firm and to provide our team with more opportunities,” explains Chief Operating Officer Jeffrey E. Beach, who heads the firm’s Erie office and maintains an active tax and consulting practice. “By being larger, it has helped us to go outside the Erie market with experience and credibility, and given our team members the ability to diversify into more intellectually stimulating work.”
The key to making these mergers work, according to the firm, was strategically aligning with CPA firms that shared Malin Bergquist’s culture and business philosophy.
“We have known the two firms that have joined us for a while, and so we were very comfortable that their partners were committed to the same things that we were,” notes Beach. “DDK&D and DTA were known for doing quality work, having a high level of professional integrity, and a commitment to their profession by being at the forefront of quality. We all had the philosophy of wanting to be held to the highest yardstick or benchmark.”
Adds partner Clarence Kearney, formerly of DDK&D, and who now serves on the firm’s executive committee, “We all have a lot of the same attributes in terms of our profession, what we believe and how we deal with our clients, many who have been with us for 35 to 40 years. As they grow, we grow with them, and that’s the goal of this firm.”
Drawing on each other’s strengths, the recent unions have amounted to more than 1,350 new clients in the Erie area, while adding another 400 to 500 clients in and around Pittsburgh. At the same time, a larger pool of accounting talent has enabled Malin Bergquist to further grow its expertise in the areas of closely held businesses, litigation support and business valuations.
“When you look at the spectrum of businesses that we cover, we probably hit upon every type of industry,” notes Beach. “Our primary goal is to bring a level of specialization to our clients and provide a higher level of service.”
Carving Its Niche
In the competitive accounting industry, Malin Bergquist has distinguished itself by offering a broad spectrum of specialized services, or niches, that include audits and consulting for international companies operating in western Pennsylvania, as well as privately held businesses, public companies, including initial public offerings (IPOs), not-for-profit organizations, automobile dealerships and the banking industry. The firm is also one of a handful of western Pennsylvania firms approved by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board to provide audits for publicly owned companies that include construction contractors, oil and gas producers, insurance firms, manufacturers and technology companies. These companies must adhere to the federal Sarbanes-Oxley Act that requires corporations to be in compliance with strict record-keeping regulations.
“We are the auditor of choice for several public companies,” explains Beach, “and we also do what you’d call auxiliary work, such as auditing employee benefit and retirement plans. We also help a lot of public companies with their Sarbanes-Oxley preparation.”
Be it working with a Fortune 500 company or a midsize manufacturer, the firm’s niche in the area of foreign owned businesses has similarly experienced a steady demand. Malin Bergquist is fully versed in the international accounting standards and is a member of CPAmerica, an international network of more than 70 large, closely integrated CPA firms across the United States, and through its connection to Horwath international, more than 15,000 professionals in 85 countries around the world. Many of the firm’s clients include foreignowned subsidiaries of companies located in Germany, Switzerland, Spain, The Netherlands and India, as well as U.S. companies with subsidiaries in Canada, China, Chile, Mexico and Brazil.
“Many of our clients now have opportunities in the international arena and we have captured the market in this area,” notes Beach. “Several of our partners travel to Germany about every other year to meet with the heads of some of these large companies. Some of these companies now have subsidiaries in China, so we’re also working on developing expertise in that area.”
According to the partners, the most important resource that a CPA firm can provide to its clients is knowledge and experience. That’s why Malin Bergquist has become a leading practitioner of litigation support and business valuations. In forensic accounting, the firm has been called upon to provide expert testimony that enables lawyers, insurance companies and other clients to resolve disputes. In proceedings such as buy-sell agreements, business valuation services provide owners with a better understanding of their company’s actual value and worth. These valuations also are often used for planning purposes related to gifting, charitable giving, and estate tax filings if the business is to have a life beyond that of its current owners.
“Some of our clients are in the company’s second or third generation,” says Beach. “We’ve spent a lot of time working on our clients’ succession plan and making sure they have the right management in place so that the family can continue to run the business. More times than I can count, we have helped clients sell their company and were retained by the new owners because of our long history with the business.”
Professional Relationships
At Malin Bergquist, a higher level of service means partners being involved with every client.
At the outset of many engagements, the partners invest their time with company owners and managers, so they can better understand their clients’ personalities, challenges and accounting systems, and internal controls. In fact, an annual study conducted by CPAmerica International, an association of independent firms nationwide, ranks Malin Bergquist in the top 5 percent of partner time spent with clients.
“Sometimes, it’s just bouncing an idea off us that may or may not even go any place,” says Kearney. “We see an awful lot of that activity, almost daily.”
In modern accounting, CPAs are expected to not only be accountants but consultants, CFOs and controllers who can help mold their clients’ financial position.
“We are probably the No. 1 person they go to when there is an issue, because they know they can trust our integrity and confidentiality,” says Kearney. “It doesn’t necessarily just have to be about getting tax returns filed or making sure financial statements get to the bank. We’re going to try to keep them from stepping on any proverbial landmines.”
At the end of the day, “we want our clients to succeed,” he adds. “Their success or their failures will become our successes and failures.”
The same holds true for the communities that the CPA firm serves. Through its work with not-for-profit agencies, Malin Bergquist has extended its support to many local charities. Many of the firm’s partners and team members volunteer on a wide variety of boards and worthy causes. Firmwide, financial donations have been made to various not-for-profit agencies, including Sarah Reed Children’s Center, the Food Bank, the Erie Zoo and various projects sponsored by Habitat for Humanity.
“That’s one thing we have in common,” Kearney says of the Malin Bergquist staff, “commitment.”
Core Values
Promoting a culture of commitment and responsibility starts within the organization itself — and especially within financial firms — where honesty, trust and integrity are a fundamental part of the job description. Its core values — established with input from all 100 team members and then distilled into four easy to remember values — are excellence, learning, relationships and integrity.
At Malin Bergquist that means being an employee oriented firm and offering a competitive package with flexible schedules that allows the firm to attract new talent, while also preserving the long-term expertise of both its accountants and administrative staff.
“We have a great group of people at all levels, and the goal is always to recognize what they do for us,” says Beach. “We want our team to care about the firm and our clients as much as the partners do. That’s the culture that we have.”
According to the AICPA, recruitment and retention of qualified staff ranks at the top of the practice management challenges faced by practitioners. The more value placed on a firm’s ethics, values, and integrity, the more likely there is a greater sense of loyalty, job satisfaction, and retention among its employees. With a greater amount of experience and skill sets to draw from, a CPA firm can cast a wider net of resources.
In the area of public company audits, for example, Malin Bergquist recently brought on board a former manager of a Big 4 accounting firm who handled corporate accounting for Del Monte Foods, Hershey Foods and H.J. Heinz, as well as a former controller of Rent Way Inc. Such expertise has given Malin Bergquist clients a greater depth of resources.
“With all kinds of new talent and a much larger, diverse firm,” says Kearney, “we are serving even more clients in the region than we did a few months ago.”
“Our most important assets are our staff and our existing clients,” adds Beach. “They are No. 1 in our mind all the time. At the same time, our goal is to move forward in an organized thoughtful way, and to try and recruit good talent and the kind of clients who will move our firm forward in the future.”
It’s these long-standing values that Malin Bergquist & Company expects will account for its success now and in the future.
For more information, visit www.malinbergquist.com.
