Arthur Andersen ex-partners seek to raise $176M in IPO

Andersen Group Inc., the U.S. arm of the professional services firm that succeeded the shuttered accounting giant Arthur Andersen, is seeking to raise $176 million in an initial public offering. 

The company plans to market 11 million shares for $14 to $16 each, according to its filing Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. 

At the top of that range, Andersen would have a market value of around $1.75 billion based on the outstanding shares listed in its filing.

The San Francisco-based company had net income of $65.7 million on revenue of $668.3 million for the nine months ended Sept. 30, compared with net income of $144.5 million on revenue of $589.2 million for the same period a year earlier.

The consultancy was founded by former Arthur Andersen partners following that firm’s collapse, the website shows. The current firm was launched under a different name in 2002 and adopted the Andersen brand in 2014 following encouraging market research, according to a letter from Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Mark Vorsatz in the filing. 

“I told a long-time friend that ‘this was a no brainer’,” he wrote.

The company provides tax, valuation, financial advisory and consulting services to individual and commercial clients. Andersen Group employs more than 2,200 people in the U.S. and is part of Andersen Global, a Swiss verein or association of legally separate firms all over the world, consisting of more than 300 member and collaborating firms, the filing shows.

The original Arthur Andersen was convicted in 2002 of obstructing a US Justice Department investigation of Enron’s accounting, which prompted hundreds of clients and partners to defect. The same year, US lawmakers passed the landmark law known as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which tightened regulations for auditing companies. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Arthur Andersen’s conviction in 2005.

Arthur Andersen in 2009 agreed to pay $16 million to Enron’s creditors to settle claims that the accounting firm was negligent in auditing and advising the energy trader. Enron, based in Houston, was the world’s largest energy-trading company, with a market value of as much as $68 billion, before it imploded amid allegations of accounting fraud.

Andersen’s offering is being led by Morgan Stanley and UBS Group AG. The company plans for its shares to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ANDG.