• Accounting and Auditing
• Business Investigation Services
• Bankruptcy and Restructuring
• Turnaround and Crisis Management
• Forensic Accounting and Litigation Support
• Mergers and Acquisition Services
• Business Valuations
• BIS Partner Profiles
• Chad J. Shandler, CPA
• Kenneth Arlein, CPA, ABV, CVA
• Sharon Bromberg, CPA, CIRA, CFF
• Howard L. Konicov, CPA, CIRA
• Kevin P. Clancy, CPA, J.D., CIRA, CFF
• Clifford A. Zucker, CPA, CFF
• Bernard A. Katz, CPA, CIRA, CFE, CFF
• Tax Services
• Consulting Services
• Governance, Risk, and Compliance
• Private Equity Services

Sharon Bromberg, CPA, CIRA, CFF

Functional Expertise

• Mergers and Acquisition Services
• Bankruptcy and Restructuring
• Forensic Accounting and Litigation Support

Sharon Bromberg is a partner with J.H. Cohn's Business Investigation Services Group and serves as the Firm's Mergers and Acquisition Services Co-Practice Director. In that role, Ms. Bromberg has been involved in scores of due diligence assignments, representing potential purchasers and investors in all aspects of the process, including quality of earnings; normalized EBITDA analyses; compliance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP); transition services agreements; purchase price disputes; and post-transaction and integration issues.

Ms. Bromberg's experience covers a wide range of industries, including retail and consumer products, professional services, financial services, software, manufacturing, and distribution. She has advised on public and private transactions involving stand-alone platform acquisitions, business segment carve outs, and start-up and roll-up transactions. She has worked with private equity sponsors, corporate acquirers and sellers, traditional lenders, and alternative capital providers, and has worked on several cross-border M&A transactions.

Ms. Bromberg also provides accounting malpractice services, fraud investigations, forensic accounting, litigation support, and expert witness testimony services. She advises on a wide variety of business matters, including issues related to contract  disputes, liquidity, and solvency, representing the Company, unsecured creditor committees, secured lenders, and trustees. Her Chapter 11 experience has afforded her the opportunity to be directly involved in many asset sales conducted under court supervision. Additionally, Ms. Bromberg has 20 years of audit and accounting experience.

Ms. Bromberg is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the New Jersey Society of Certified Public Accountants, the Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Advisors, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, the American Bankruptcy Institute, and the Association for Corporate Growth.

Experience Highlights

• Ms. Bromberg led a team that provided buy-side due diligence to a steel processing company.  We identified that the Target’s prior-year gross margin was exceptionally high; these results were caused by the Target’s purchase of inventory prior to an industry-wide increase in raw materials and the sale of the finished product at current market rates.  This "artificial boost" in gross margins was a non-recurring event. As a result, we recommended that our client reduce its purchase price considerably.
  
  
• J.H. Cohn served as financial advisors for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court-appointed Examiner in the WorldCom bankruptcy proceedings, one of the largest bankruptcies in U.S. history.  Ms. Bromberg managed the investigation regarding allegations of fraud, dishonesty, and misconduct by management. She also managed the investigation related to the company's mergers and acquisitions. Our findings: Company fraudulently manipulated its financial statements for four consecutive years, and the breakdown of internal control permitted the fraud to continue undetected for that long period of time; major responsibility for the fraud and the resulting injury to the Company rested with the Company’s CFO; and the Company’s independent auditors committed professional malpractice.
  
  
• The Firm was engaged by a Bank group to determine the validity and collectibility of the Company’s accounts receivable securing an asset based loan (ABL).  Our forensic investigation, led by Ms. Bromberg, identified the existence of fictitious customers and sales, as well as forged bills of lading and invoices. We helped Federal investigators prove that certain officers and employees were involved in a massive worldwide fraud by identifying the issues and tracing the movement of cash to related foreign entities totaling approximately    $1 billion. Our involvement resulted in the arrest of the Company’s Chief Executive Officer on charges of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, mail fraud, and wire fraud.
  
  
• Our client engaged a J.H. Cohn team, led by Ms. Bromberg, to perform a due diligence review of the Target company.  Our due diligence review raised concerns about the reliability of the Target’s financial statements, including the fact that the Target could not provide support for a significant portion of its inventory recorded on its balance sheet and inter-company account balances on the books of the Target’s parent did not reconcile to its subsidiary’s balances.  As a result of these and other findings, our client was able to successfully renegotiate the purchase price of the Target.

Accreditations

• Certified Public Accountant, New Jersey, 1983
• Certified Insolvency and Restructuring Advisor, 2003
• Certified in Financial Forensics, 2009

Education

Bachelor of Business Administration, cum laude, Accounting, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 1981