Florida company buys Century II parent

September 19, 2016

Nashville Post
by Geert De Lombaerde

A large Florida professional employer organization has acquired the holding company for Brentwood-based Century II as well as related companies with offices in Arizona, Colorado, Indiana and Utah.

Terms of the deal by Oasis Outsourcing, which bills itself as the nation’s largest privately held PEO, for CEP Inc. aren’t being disclosed. The acquisition grows the number of workers on Oasis’ platforms across the country by 14,000 to more than 200,000. CEP in turn owns almost all the shares of Fortune Industries, which is traded on the Pink Sheets, and Oasis will soon move to buy the remaining Fortune shares.

“The inclusion of Century II, Professional Staff Management and Employer Solutions Group is significant in Oasis’ strategy to increase our geographic footprint and cost-efficient client offerings,” said Mark Perlberg, president and CEO of Oasis. “This acquisition also gives us the opportunity to welcome an experienced and talented team of Fortune Industries professionals to the Oasis organization.”

CEP, which works for more than 600 companies, has for the past few yearsbeen owned by Tena Mayberry (pictured) and Randy Butler, who took over the PEO group of Fortune Industries as that holding company was restructuring. Through the first nine months of its latest fiscal year, the new iteration of Fortune posted a net profit of almost $2.4 million on revenues of $48.3 million. Both of those numbers were up slightly from the mark of the year before.

“This is an exciting time for Fortune Industries,” said Mayberry, president and CEO of Fortune Industries. “As our companies join together, our clients will find even more value in Oasis’ additional product offerings while continuing to enjoy the same high level of service.”

Attorneys at Bone McAllester Norton advised CEP and Fortune Industries in their talks with Oasis.