CHICAGO - Advisory firm Crowe Chizek & Co. is rolling out a new name - Crowe Horwath LLP - a move driven by the firm's efforts to build a stronger national reputation by promoting its 17-year-old ties with Horwath International.
Firm officials want to make sure its potential clients are aware of its expanding capabilities to address their accounting, management, and other advisory needs from a local, national, and international platform. The firm is shifting its structure to better align its offerings alongside Horwath.
"In today's world of rapid globalization and increasingly competitive markets, businesses around the world are expressing needs that Crowe and Horwath member firms are well positioned to serve," Chuck Allen, the firm's chief executive officer, said in a statement.
For the firm's existing and potential public sector clients, its international ties could come in handy for a local government seeking to travel abroad to promote economic development ties, according to Mike Harmless of Crowe's public sector services group.
"We've been viewed as a regional firm with a national presence. We want to be viewed as a national firm with international" reach, he said.
Crowe's roots are in South Bend, Ind., where it opened as a two-person independent accounting firm more than six decades ago. It now employs 2,500 people in 20 offices. It is officially based in the Chicago suburb of Oak Brook where Allen works, but Indianapolis remains a key personnel base for the firm. About 150 of its employees work in the public sector group that serves about 800 clients in 30 states.
The firm offers tax-exempt market, consulting, accounting, and financial advisory services to public sector, higher education, and health care clients. Its rankings on municipal deals do not truly reflect its level of business with public finance clients as its work may not be directly linked to a bond sale. For example, Crowe completed the valuation analysis for Indiana on its lease of the Indiana Toll Road in 2006.
"What we try to do for our public sector clients is offer strategic financial advice," Harmless said.
Crowe ranked fourth in Indiana as a financial adviser on 13 bond deals worth nearly $200 million in 2007 but did not rank in the top 25 in the Midwest, according to Thomson Reuters. The firm ranked seventh in Indiana for the first of half of 2008.
Harmless, who was mayor of Greencastle, Ind., between 1988 and 1995, said that given the economic struggles of local and state governments across the country, he sees increasing opportunities for the firm because of the broad financial services it provides.
As property tax bases are strained because of lower real estate values and foreclosures, Harmless expects governments to focus more on shifting some financial burdens to fees and other taxes "to reflect the cost of doing business." Crowe is also working on several fuel-hedging programs to help public sector clients offset the rising cost of fuel on the open market, which is straining the budgets of many local governments and transit agencies.
