Employee Leasing Solutions (ELS) Changes Ownership

Longtime Employee Leasing Industry Retires

January 6, 2012.

One of the founders of the employee leasing industry, William Mullis has sold his company, Employee Leasing Solutions to a new employee leasing company named Workforce Business Services. According to information on the ELS website, Robert Kelly a long time business partner and executive at ELS has purchased the interest of Mr. Mullis. Terms of the sale were not disclosed.

Executive Backgrounds

Mr. Kelly has over nearly 20 years experience in the employee leasing industry beginning his career with Staff Leasing which was originally founded in Bradenton in the late 1980s. Mr. Mullis was one of the original founders of Staff Leasing. In the late 90s Mr. Mullis and his partners sold their interest in Staff Leasing to an investment firm which then expanded the company and took the company public, later changing the name to Gevity HR. After years of poor financial performance, Gevity HR was taken private by an investment group and later sold to TriNet, Inc headquartered in San Leandro California.

After selling his interest in Staff Leasing in the mid 1990s, Mr. Mullis re-entered the employee leasing business with a new company called People Leasing. People Leasing later changed their name to Employee Leasing Solutions (ELS) after a trademark dispute. Mr. Kelly left Staff Leasing and joined Mr. Mullis in growing ELS by focusing their business solutions on the construction marketplace which was largely abandoned by Staff Leasing (Gevity) in their pursuit of lower workers’ compensation risk accounts. ELS gained success by focusing their product line payroll, workers’ compensation insurance and governmental compliance for the small construction business owners throughout Florida. Later ELS expanded their presence in California but has largely remained a Florida centric employee leasing company.

Entity Changes – Workforce Business Services, Inc.

According to records at the Florida Division of Corporations, The original entity that has acquired ELS has been in existence since 1998 and was originally established as Employee Leasing Solutions, Inc. In 2002, the name was changed to BK and DV, Inc. The name reflected the initials of the company principals, Bob Kelly and David Varnadore. Mr. Varnadore was also a long time Staff Leasing and ELS executive. In August 2010, an amendment was filed with the state of Florida removing Mr. Varnadore from the list of officers and directors. In September 2011, the entity name was again changed to Workforce Business Services, Inc.

Changes for ELS clients

According to the ELS website Workers’ Compensation insurance will be provided by Zurich and major medial insurance will be offered by Aetna. The fact that new workers’ comp certificates will be provide to clients indicates that the sale of ELS was conducted as an asset sale, rather than a sale of ownership interest in the ELS business entity. This may provide advantages for lowered costs for state unemployment insurance. Employee Leasing clients affect by these changes may want to review our information about how to review options when their PEO is sold.
My PEO was just sold, now what?