Partners in marriage find themselves standing in front of a judge 50 percent of the time ”“ sometimes amicably, sometimes a la “War of the Roses.” Likewise, partners in business can discover that breaking up is hard to do.
Phillip Goldstein, who shared office and shingle with Woody Levitan and Michael Yegidis for 16 years, is now out of the Middletown accounting firm and working solely with his new partner, Pincus Lieberman, under the name Goldstein, Lieberman & Co. Levitan, Yegidis and Goldstein CPAs has become Levitan, Yegidis and Associates. The official breakup came Dec. 1, but the kettle was boiling for months.
While the terms of the business breakup could easily be turned into tabloid fodder ”“ police reports, alleged altercations and accusations ”“ all are positively united in their hopes to settle things amicably and move their respective companies forward in 2008.
Levitan, Yegidis & Associates will continue to service longtime clients out of its Industrial Drive headquarters in Middletown. Goldstein, Lieberman & Co., L.L.C., will operate its accounting firm out of Crossroads Corporate Center in Mahwah, just across the border in New Jersey.
What was initially a move to grow the original Middletown firm started taking a nose dive shortly after the firms hashed out the new co-venture. Shapiro and Lieberman entered into an agreement with Levitan Yegidis and Goldstein in 2005, resulting in Goldstein becoming managing partner of both companies. Â Things started deteriorating within months.
Now that the ties that bind have been irrevocably broken, Goldstein will devote himself solely to growing the Mahwah-based practice while hunting for an Orange County location for his Hudson Valley clients. According to Goldstein, he”™s considering a move to New Windsor”™s First Columbia Corporate Park, to be “nearer the action ”“ Stewart Airport is definitely a great location for us. While many of our clients are in the Hudson Valley, we feel we need to establish a physical presence there.”
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For Levitan and Yegidis, the Middletown office in their Orange County backyard, where the two partners have worked together for more than 35 years, is “open for business,” said Levitan, “and that”™s where we”™ll stay.” The pair hired Goldstein in 1994 with the intent of creating a succession plan for the firm, says Levitan. Now that the accountants”™ “marriage”™ is on the rocks  and about to go to arbitration to solve irreconcilable differences, both are looking to move onward and upward as quickly and painlessly as possible.
“The goal in making Phil a managing partner was to create a succession plan. Now, we will create another succession plan,” said Levitan.
Meantime, Goldstein says he hopes he and partner Lieberman will continue to grow their new partnership (and open a satellite office in Orange county within the next year).
According to Levitan, Orange County Supreme Court Justice William J. Giacomo will choose an arbitrator for the parting partners. That decision was expected Dec. 10.
Levitan, Yegidis and Goldstein decidedly have their own view of the breakup and its ongoing reverberations, but all agree on one thing: getting out without any more damage done. “There”™s been enough said and done on both sides,” said an associate of the now litigious partners. “I hope they resolve this amicably and quickly for all their sakes.”
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