Xeinadin has acquired Hayden Brown, one of Dublin’s longest-established independent practices. Founded over a century ago, Hayden Brown has been a fixture in the Irish market for generations. It will not be the last firm to be absorbed this year.
This is not an isolated deal. It is the latest chapter in a consolidation story that has been building across Ireland and the UK for several years now, and in 2026 it is moving faster than many people in practice expected. Private equity-backed consolidators like Xeinadin have a clear and well-funded thesis: acquire profitable, well-regarded independent firms, bring them onto a shared services platform, and grow. The economics can work well for the acquiring group. What they mean for the people inside those firms is a more complicated question.
What is actually happening in the market
The consolidation wave is not new, but it has accelerated. In the UK, firms like Azets, Evelyn Partners, and Xeinadin itself have been acquiring regional and mid-sized practices at pace. Ireland has historically moved more slowly on this, partly because of the strength of the Big Four and the mid-tier, and partly because many independent Irish practices are deeply relationship-driven businesses where ownership succession has been handled informally for decades.
That is changing. Partners approaching retirement who might once have handed their practice to a younger colleague are now finding that the internal succession pipeline is thinner than it used to be. Talented managers and seniors are leaving for industry before they reach partnership. The consolidators are offering an exit that makes financial sense, and many owners are taking it.
For Xeinadin, acquiring a name like Hayden Brown is about more than the client book. It is about the reputation, the relationships, and the team. That team is now going to want answers.
What this means if you work in an acquired firm
If you are a qualified accountant or part-qualified working in a practice that has just been acquired — or is rumoured to be in discussions — the uncertainty is real. That is worth acknowledging plainly.
Some things tend not to change immediately: your manager, your clients, your day-to-day work. The consolidators are generally not interested in disrupting what works. But the culture will shift over time. Central finance functions replace local autonomy. Standardised systems replace the processes you know. Progression routes that once ran through partnership at a single firm now run through a much larger organisation with its own internal politics.
For some people, that is an upgrade — more structure, better training infrastructure, clearer career frameworks. For others, the thing they valued most about working in an independent practice was precisely the autonomy and the proximity to decision-makers. That version of the job looks different inside a consolidator.
The question worth sitting with is not “should I stay or go?” right now. It is: what was I actually here for? If the answer was the people, the clients, and the quality of technical work, those things may survive the transition. If the answer was the culture of a firm built over a century by people who knew each other’s names, that is harder to preserve at scale.
What this means if you are hiring in practice
For independent and mid-tier firms still competing for talent, consolidation creates both a problem and an opportunity. The problem is obvious: consolidators have capital, and they are not shy about using it on salaries, benefits, and the appearance of stability.
The opportunity is less discussed. Some accountants who join consolidated firms will find it is not what they expected. The informal, relationship-led environment of a smaller practice is difficult to replicate. When those people start looking again — often within eighteen months to two years — they will be looking for something closer to where they started.
Independent firms that have a clear story about what makes them different, that treat candidates like professionals rather than CVs, and that can articulate a genuine path for progression will win that conversation. The ones that compete only on salary will struggle, because they will not win on salary.
The longer view
Practice consolidation is not going to slow down in the near term. The structural pressures driving it — succession gaps, rising compliance costs, the technology investment required to stay competitive — are not going away. More Dublin names will be acquired. Some of those will be firms that candidates reading this post are currently working in.
None of this is cause for panic. It is cause for being clear about what you want from your career and not waiting for circumstances to make the decision for you.
If you are in a firm that has recently been acquired, or you are watching a deal unfold from the inside and trying to work out what to do next, it is worth talking to someone who knows this market and is not trying to sell you anything. That is exactly the kind of conversation we have every week.
