Atlas
Back to Accounting Roll-Ups
Peer Fund / Dealmaker·Accounting Roll-Ups

Forrest Wilkinson

Principal, Services at Apax Partners

New York, NY, USA

FW
LinkedIn
Why they matter

Architect of Apax's 2025 CohnReznick investment and a serial board director on its insurance/professional-services roll-ups — a direct line into how a top-tier PE buyer underwrites accounting consolidation.

Background

Forrest Wilkinson is a Principal on Apax Partners' Services team, based in New York, whom he joined in 2014 after M&A roles at Evercore Partners and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. He holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business (Arjay Miller Scholar) and dual undergraduate degrees (BBA Finance; BA Plan II Honors) from the University of Texas at Austin. He leads a nine-person cross-border deal team and has built a specialty in insurance distribution and professional-services roll-ups, including accounting and audit platforms.

Notable deals

  • 2025
    Led Apax's strategic growth investment in CohnReznick, a top-15 US accounting/advisory firm ($1.12B FY25 revenue), to fund its acquisition-led growth strategy
  • 2021
    Board director following Apax's acquisition of PIB Group, a UK/Ireland insurance broking and MGA consolidator, from The Carlyle Group
  • 2017
    Board director of Tosca, the reusable-packaging platform Apax acquired and grew via multiple bolt-on acquisitions
  • 2019
    Board director of AssuredPartners, the fifth-largest independent US P&C insurance brokerage, through Apax's ownership and its ~400-deal buy-and-build program

Call-prep brief

Background

  • Principal, Services team, Apax Partners (NY); joined 2014 from Evercore and BofA Merrill Lynch M&A
  • Stanford MBA (Arjay Miller Scholar); BBA/BA from UT Austin
  • Leads a 9-person, 6-country deal team

Current focus

  • Point person on Apax's Feb 2025 growth investment in CohnReznick — Apax's first institutional bet on a top-15 US accounting/advisory firm, explicitly framed around a targeted acquisition strategy in the fragmented mid-market
  • Sits on the boards of PIB Group (insurance broking), Tosca (packaging), and AssuredPartners (P&C brokerage) — all buy-and-build platforms

What he cares about

  • Professional-services fragmentation and specialist/expert-led firms winning share from generalists
  • Talent retention and culture as constraints on roll-up pace (repeated theme in his CohnReznick commentary)
  • Technology-enabled service delivery as a value-creation lever, not just M&A volume

Recent moves

  • AssuredPartners exit to Arthur J. Gallagher for $13.45B (announced 2024, closing ~Q1 2025) — a realized proof point on the brokerage-roll-up playbook he can speak to candidly now that it's a completed return

Sensitivities

  • CohnReznick is a live, early-stage investment (closed Feb 2025) — he'll likely be guarded on specifics of pipeline targets or economics
  • Avoid framing questions as soliciting confidential deal terms; frame around strategy and market view instead

Questions to ask

  1. What underwriting lessons from AssuredPartners' ~400-deal buy-and-build carried over to how Apax is approaching CohnReznick's acquisition pipeline?
  2. How does Apax evaluate partner/talent retention risk when a professional-services firm takes outside capital for the first time?
  3. Which adjacent accounting/advisory sub-verticals does he see as next for institutional consolidation?

Outreach draft

Subject
Your view on accounting roll-up consolidation
Hi Forrest, I came across your work leading Apax's growth investment in CohnReznick and your board experience across PIB Group and AssuredPartners — a strong track record in professional-services and insurance-distribution consolidation. We're doing diligence on the accounting roll-up space and would value your perspective on how institutional capital should think about talent retention, acquisition pacing, and technology investment when a partnership-model firm takes on outside ownership for the first time. Would you have 20-30 minutes in the next couple of weeks for a call? Happy to work around your schedule. Best, [Your Name]

Linked companies

Sources