Our clients tell the GHP Horwath story best. In this section, we highlight stories that showcase our industry depth, and our services breadth.
- Client:
Cobitco, Inc.
- Challenge:
Multi-generation, family-run manufacturing business
- Solution:
Provide comprehensive services including corporate tax, personal tax, valuation, estate planning, business transition, and financial planning and wealth management.
Founded in 1960 in Denver, Colorado, Cobitco manufactures and sells emulsified asphalt products. Liquid asphalt products are used in a range of road maintenance and construction projects for building, maintaining, rehabilitating and recycling roads, and for numerous other applications. Cobitco buys asphalt from an oil refinery, and then processes it with specialty chemicals that make it usable for the end users. With just under $10 million in total sales, the company sells its products directly to contractors and numerous city, county, and state agencies.
Cobitco has a long history of working with GHP Horwath, one that spans nearly four decades. This second-generation business, now run by brothers Bob and Bud Morgan, leverages a broad range of services from us, including corporate tax, personal tax, financial planning, valuation, estate planning, and wealth management.
As Bob Morgan explains, Cobitco is not a typical manufacturing business, “Our business doesn’t fit the accounting models of most manufacturing companies. There is not ‘one widget plus two divets’ that make this product. It just doesn’t work that way. The ingredients for our products are necessarily variable, and are liquid as opposed to solid items — so our accounting had to be different.”
Explains Bob, “GHP Horwath really took the time to understand our business rather than force-fitting us into some pre-existing model. They learned about our business and have been absolutely accurate and proper with tax filing. We avoid any tax situation that gets us into gray areas of tax law, and we believe that GHP does a superb job with that. They have the same philosophy we do.”
GHP Horwath has worked with Cobitco on a range of projects, including a recapitalization to allow the business ownership to be transferred from the first generation to the current generation. The GHP Horwath team also helped with a valuation of the business when one of the other Morgan brothers, a stockholder in the business, died several years ago, and is currently doing another valuation to put a monetary worth on the business to be ready for the next transfer of ownership.
Says Bob, “Because they offer such a wide variety of services — both my brother and I use them personally for our accounting and estate planning as did our parents — they see an integrated picture of our financial life. They understand how our business works and in particular really understand the unique challenges of a closely held business. They help us optimize how all the pieces of our business fit together. As a team, they are very genuine, good people. And they are honest — they tell it like it is. We can call them our friends and do.”
