New York
M&A Tax Advisory

Who We Are

Your business deserves to have the best tax advisors who will put your priorities and business objectives first. That’s where we come in. Our experienced tax consultants will offer a wealth of top-notch tax strategies to help you navigate your M&A deal. Business owners and deal professionals should understand how each M&A deal structure affects their business’s tax profile. Our tax advisors can help deal professionals in the entire process, from the beginning to the end of the deal. Having an understanding of how a deal will impact future tax returns before the deal process even begins can help deal professionals determine which M&A strategies will best achieve business and tax goals, and which approaches will yield the most desirable after-tax IRR.

Leo Berwick’s team of seasoned M&A deal professionals has over 300 years of experience combined, and all have practiced in a wide variety of industries. Many of our tax consultants worked as senior partners in Big 4 accounting firms, law firms and within various branches of the federal government. As a full-service M&A tax advisory, our team at Leo Berwick is dedicated to providing efficient and comprehensive M&A tax services so that you can get back to business.

Our team at Leo Berwick is purposefully not as large as a Big 4 accounting firms. We want our clients to have access to our best and brightest at all times. We are a nimble and efficient team eager to deliver results without the bloated bureaucracies that you’ll find at other firms. Leo Berwick is selective in how it chooses clients, so that our clients are able to have full access at all times to our first-rate team of M&A consultants.

At Leo Berwick, we cater to progressive clients, and we believe that your triumphs are synonymous with our own success. We prize innovation, and our M&A tax experts take pride in bringing our unapologetically entrepreneurial spirit to every deal to ensure our mutual success with our clients.

Our innovative clients know that they can rely on us to receive the very best tax services and M&A advice in the entire country, at a reasonable price. With Leo Berwick at your side, you’ll gain a competitive advantage in your M&A deal because we will recognize you and your business’s potential for success.

What We Do

A fine-tuned balance between business and tax objectives should always be your tax advisor’s number one priority. At Leo Berwick, our M&A tax advisors take this philosophy seriously. Between the fast-paced nature of an M&A deal, the varying roles of different team members, and the contrasting interests of people on the other side of the deal, important parts of the deal sometimes fall through. Our tax consultants won’t let that happen. Our New York team of M&A tax professionals at Leo Berwick has many years of experience in thoroughly and efficiently handling complex and often confusing tax concepts and processes, such as:

• tax due diligence,
• FIRPTA,
• withholding taxes,
• international tax structuring,
• tax basis step ups,
• E&P calculations,
• Shareholder loans,
• interest expense limitations,
• and many others.

Our M&A tax professionals take care of the calculations, tax structuring, and advise on overall approaches to M&A tax strategies, so that your M&A deal yields the most desirable outcomes.

Coordinating a successful M&A transaction requires business acumen, legal expertise, and a strong familiarity with intricacies of an ever-changing tax code. It’s an art form. Without the requisite knowledge of industry trends and market fluctuations and how those interact with the Internal Revenue Code or non-U.S. tax codes, M&A deal professionals cannot put together the whole picture required to understand a client’s needs from a tax standpoint.

Our first-rate tax services were created to make your M&A transaction a smoother and more efficient experience. Whether you’re interested in pursuing a stock purchase, asset purchase, a reorganization, a partner buyout, or any number of other types of mergers and acquisitions, Leo Berwick can provide tax strategies, services and advising.

New York City: a Global M&A Hub

The state of New York has the third largest economy in the United States, behind California and Texas. With a total of nearly $1.5 trillion in GDP in 2019, much of the state’s revenue is powered by New York City.[1] Since New York City has sustained a long-standing dominance in financial, banking, and communication industries, it should come as no surprise that New York City is also a thriving hub of M&A activity. Financial services are, of course, synonymous with Wall Street, the New York Stock Exchange, and the NASDAQ. Although the financial services industry is the most dominant sector in NYC, it is not the only sector to watch in the city. Other prominent sectors include healthcare, professional and technical services, retail, and manufacturing. In fact, the single largest group of people in any one industry in the state of New York belong to the health care sector.[2]

If the United States can be said to be at the center of M&A deal flows, then New York City is at the heart of domestic and international M&A transactions. In 2019, New York City saw $2 trillion worth of M&A deals struck in the first half of 2019.[3] Located in the world’s financial capital, Leo Berwick in New York City is our eastern-most office in the United States. Leo Berwick’s M&A tax practice in New York City is perfectly situated to advise on international M&A transactions and take advantage of the proximity of Wall Street and all of the other industries that New York City has to offer.

New York has its own thriving startup scene. It should not come as a surprise that New York City is one of the most popular places to establish fintech startups. The second quarter of 2019 saw $5.07 billion in venture capital investments in fintech; a record high for this sector in any one quarter.[4]

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a unique impact on M&A deal activity. Despite market fluctuations and uncertainty that led to a depressed second quarter in 2020, the M&A market bounced back with an increase of 90% in deal activity for the second half of the year.[5] We may be heading into a year with increased M&A activity in 2021. Companies in the S&P 1200 currently hold a record $3.8 trillion in their cash reserves.[6] In addition, the pandemic caused borrowing to reach record highs as companies attempted infuse their balance sheets with cash after revenues plummeted in the first quarter.[7] Despite a rocky start to 2020 due to the pandemic, M&A activity in 2021 appears to be rebounding quickly. March 2021 saw $548 billion worth of M&A deals announced, a record amount for any single month.[8] With these record numbers in mind and with interest rates remaining low, companies may want to consider using cash reserves stored up during the pandemic for any number of reasons. Businesses can take advantage of mergers and acquisitions to achieve a number of goals, such as:

• diversify a company’s portfolio,
• establish or improve a foothold in a growing market,
• protect existing market share, or
• dispose of underperforming subsidiaries.

Put Your M&A Tax Strategies in Place with Leo Berwick

As we enter into a stage of recovery and growth in a post-pandemic world, you should consider the numerous opportunities that the field of M&A will provide you and your business. However, mergers and acquisitions as a field of expertise is large and complex. Your business deserves the guidance of top industry experts to help you through the complex tax matters arising from your M&A deal or restructuring. Explore our pages under “Services” and “Tax Industry News” to learn more about our wide array of services. Please do not hesitate to call us at 619-404-0323, or email us at info@leoberwick.com with any questions that you want answered relating to mergers and acquisitions and tax concepts.

We thank you for your interest in our M&A tax advisory at Leo Berwick. We encourage you to learn more about us and give us the opportunity to learn more about you and your business needs. Our offices are located in New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego, and we invite you to take advantage of our free tax training for M&A deal professionals. Our team of skilled M&A tax and deal professionals looks forward to hearing from you soon.

[1]“Economic and Demographic Trends.” 2020 Financial Condition Report for Fiscal Year Ended March 31, 2020, Office of the New York State Comptroller, www.osc.state.ny.us/reports/finance/2020-fcr/economic-and-demographic-trends#:~:text=In%202019%3A,percent%20of%20the%20U.S.%20total.

[2] Ross, Sean. “New York’s Economy: The 6 Industries Driving GDP Growth.” Investopedia, Investopedia, 19 May 2021, www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/011516/new-yorks-economy-6-industries-driving-gdp-growth.asp.

[3] Cremades, Alejandro. “20 Cities Where M&A Thrive.” Business Matters: UK’s Leading Business Magazine, 14 Oct. 2019, bmmagazine.co.uk/business/20-cities-where-ma-thrive/.

[4] Pollari, Ian, and Anton Ruddenklau. “Robust Year for Fintech Investment in the US.” Pulse of Fintech H2’19 – US, KPMG, 12 Feb. 2020, home.kpmg/xx/en/home/campaigns/2020/02/pulse-of-fintech-h2-19-us.html.

[5] Morrison Foerster, et al. “M&A In 2020 And Trends For 2021.” Edited by Morrison Foerster, JD Supra, JD Supra, 15 Jan. 2021, www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/m-a-in-2020-and-trends-for-2021-7116897/.

[6] “In a Post-COVID Economy, M&A Emerging as a Big Deal.” Edited by Deloitte, The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones & Company, 14 Aug. 2020, deloitte.wsj.com/cfo/2020/08/11/in-a-post-covid-economy-ma-emerging-as-a-big-deal/.

[7] Brennan, Peter, and Stefen Joshua Rasay. “North American M&A Surges in Q1 to 2nd-Highest Deal Volume This Century.” Accelerating Progress, 4 May 2021, www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/north-american-m-a-surges-in-q1-to-2nd-highest-deal-volume-this-century-63960023.

[8] Smith, Patrick. “Deal Watch: $469B in M&A Activity Makes for the Biggest April Since 1980.” The American Lawyer, Law.com, 3 May 2021, www.law.com/americanlawyer/2021/05/03/deal-watch-469b-in-ma-activity-makes-for-the-biggest-april-since-1980/?slreturn=20210518141621.