Sumer is reported to have agreed a deal that values it at more than £1bn, with TPG as lead investor. Its filings show 17 deals since January 2022, mostly small owner-run practices, and 372 more of that size that our model rates PURSUE.
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Start free trialIn October 2026, The Times reported that Sumer, the accountancy group owned by Penta Capital, had agreed a deal valuing it at more than £1bn. TPG is to lead a new continuation fund, and Penta Capital stays on as manager and owner. None of the three firms commented on the terms.
A continuation fund lets a private equity owner keep a business it would otherwise sell: investors in the old fund can take their money out, and a new investor buys in alongside the owner. Penta Capital took that route after a full sale stalled. In May, City AM and Accountancy Today reported that the sale had been put on hold after some bidders questioned the price.
Sumer was founded in 2022 and was reported in May to have around £300m of revenue, about 3,000 staff and more than 34 accounting firms in the group, most of them owner-run practices it bought. This article reads Sumer's own filings at Companies House to show how fast it buys, what size of practice it buys, and how many practices like them are still independent.
Sumer's filings show 17 deals in the UK since January 2022. Its busiest full year was 2025, with 6 deals. So far in 2026 it has filed 4, and that count will rise as recent deals reach the register.
| Year | UK deals |
|---|---|
| 2022 | 1 |
| 2023 | 2 |
| 2024 | 4 |
| 2025 | 6 |
| 2026 (to 24 October 2026) | 4 |
| 17 deals since January 2022, 2 of them after 25 May 2026. | |
These counts are floors. A deal is a date on which Sumer took control of a UK company from its owners, so two practices bought on the same day count once. A deal appears only once the bought company files its new owner, and practices that are not companies, such as traditional partnerships and sole practitioners, never appear on the register at all. That is why the filings show fewer deals than the number of firms Sumer is reported to have brought into the group.
2 of Sumer's deals were completed after 25 May 2026. A group whose owner was looking for new money did not stop buying practices, and a continuation fund backed by a new investor gives it more money to keep doing so.
For the 11 practices whose last accounts before the deal showed positive EBITDA, the middle one earned £71k. A group reported to be worth £1bn has been built mostly from small, owner-run practices. That is the usual shape of buy-and-build in accountancy: the group adds local practices as bolt-ons, keeps the clients and the staff, and serves them as part of a larger firm.
We built a buy box around Sumer's deals: accountancy practices at up to £250k EBITDA, up to about three times the EBITDA of the middle practice Sumer bought. Our model rates 372 independent UK practices in that box as PURSUE, our highest verdict: practices showing exit-timing signals on a sound business, and not owned by another company. 63.2% have an owner aged 60 or over, and 28.0% an owner aged 70 or over.
| Practices | Companies | Share |
|---|---|---|
| All practices in the box | 372 | 100% |
| Owner aged 60 or over | 235 | 63.2% |
| Owner aged 70 or over | 104 | 28.0% |
Sumer is not the only buyer looking at them. Several private equity backed accountancy groups are buying practices across the UK, and the reported £1bn valuation tells every owner of a good practice what the groups buying them can be worth. For a buyer, that means more competition for each practice, and the best chance of a deal that is not an auction is to reach the owner before a sale starts.
Our buy box opens from this page with Sumer's already set: accountancy practices at up to £250k EBITDA. Add the regions and owner age you buy and see how many PURSUE practices fit today. A Buy Box Licence names every PURSUE company inside your buy box for a year, and on any morning new ones appear we email them to you. For the other theses we have tested, see The UK Acquisition Thesis Guide.
Our figures were measured on 24 October 2026 from Companies House data held by ExitRadar. Deals are counted from the register of people with significant control: a deal is a completion date on which Sumer took control of one or more UK companies from their individual owners. Moves inside a group are not counted, and Sumer's deals are counted once across the UK holding companies it buys through. A deal's EBITDA is from the bought company's last accounts before the deal. The practices in the buy box are those our model rates PURSUE with accountancy as their main activity and estimated EBITDA in the band, excluding companies owned by another company. EBITDA figures for those practices are estimates. Owner age is the oldest person on the register of people with significant control. We withhold any figure covering fewer than 10 companies. PURSUE is our model's verdict on a company, not a forecast that it will sell. The deal, valuation, revenue, staff and firm figures for Sumer are as reported by the press, not measured by us.