EUROPEAN COMPANY BUYS U.S. ACCOUNTING FRANCHISE

Fiducial, one of Europe's largest accounting firms, has announced that it has acquired Triple Check, a large U.S. tax and accounting franchise. It may be the first time a foreign consolidator has entered the U.S. market. Fiducial has more than 450 offices in Europe, primarily in France but also in Belgium, Switzerland, and Morocco. Triple Check has more than 230 licensed offices throughout the United States and was ranked 24th on Accounting Today's Top 100 Accounting Firms.

"We want to address practices serving the large market of small businesses and help them focus on their core businesses to enable them to grow and be more profitable," Fiducial CEO and Chair Christian Latouche said. "We want small business owners to know that they can outsource to us all those activities and rely upon us to provide them with the best range of fully integrated services."

Fiducial, with more than 4,500 employees and 80,000 clients, specializes in providing small businesses with a wide range of services, including bookkeeping, payroll, auditing, consulting, legal advice, software and hardware packages, and financial planning.

Triple Check franchises are available to practitioners that wish to retain their independence while capitalizing on Triple Check's national identity and support resources. Triple Check also oversees a financial services program for practitioners looking to build personal financial planning practices.

The new company will be known as Fiducial Triple Check, Inc. David Lieberman, founder and president of Triple Check, will head the new company. The terms of the agreement were not disclosed. *

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