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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIndianapolis-based Greenwalt CPAs Inc. is set to merge with Cincinnati-based accounting firm Barnes Dennig & Co. Ltd. effective Jan. 1, the firms announced this week.
Greenwalt, which traces its origins to 1945, has 35 employees and is located at 5342 W. Vermont St., southwest of Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Barnes Dennig was founded in 1965 and has 180 employees total at four offices, including 15 employees in its Indianapolis office at 8470 Allison Pointe Blvd., Suite 200, about a mile west of Castleton Square Mall. In addition to its Indianapolis and Cincinnati offices, the firm also has locations in Dayton, Ohio and in the Cincinnati suburb of Crestview Hills, Kentucky.
Following the merger, Greenwalt will operate under the Barnes Dennig name. Greenwalt’s Managing Partner, Jim Wagoner, will become managing director of Barnes Dennig’s Indianapolis market, and all of Greenwalt’s shareholders will become directors at Barnes Dennig.
Jay Rammes, the managing director at Barnes Dennig, will remain in that role at the combined firm.
Barnes Dennig first entered the Indianapolis market in 2016, when it acquired the firm Gauthier & Kimmerling.
Rammes said the merger makes sense because Greenwalt’s culture and professional capabilities are compatible with Barnes Dennig’s.
And, Rammes said, the deal also instantly beefs up Barnes Dennig’s presence in what has been a very successful market for the firm. “Rather than being 15 people in Indianapolis, we’re 50 people in Indianapolis,” he said.
The deal was years in the making, Rammes said. He had originally approached Greenwalt’s former managing partner, Anita Sherman, to gauge her interest in combining firms. The two stayed in contact, and when Sherman retired in 2022, the conversation continued with Wagoner.
“It was really a process of five or six years’ worth of conversations,” Rammes said of the merger decision.
For his part, Wagoner said being part of a larger firm should help with talent attraction and retention. “I think it’ll be easier to recruit, being a firm of over 200 people versus a firm of 35 people,” he said.
Greenwalt was known as Keller Gaughan Greenwalt & Co. from 1980 to 1987 before becoming Greenwalt Sponsel & Co.
Greenwalt Sponsel & Co. grew into one of the city’s largest accounting firms before breaking into two separate firms, Sponsel CPA Group and Greenwalt CPAs, in 2009.
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