Fort Lauderdale HR firm acquires Lutz company

Fort Lauderdale-based professional employer organization Engage PEO has acquired Lutz-based ASM PEO, adding another Gulf Coast company to its national HR outsourcing business after earlier deals in St. Petersburg and Sarasota, the company says.

Engage PEO, which provides human resources, payroll, employee benefits and compliance outsourcing to small and mid-sized businesses, announced the acquisition Thursday. It’s the 10th such acquisition the firm has made since 2022, the announcement says.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

ASM handles payroll, employee benefits, workers’ compensation and other HR functions for small and midsize businesses in Florida and across the Southeast, its website says. Many of its clients are in the hospitality, food service and construction industries — three industries Engage PEO has served since its early years, CEO Jay Starkman says in the release.

“ASM has built its business around responsive, personal service,” Jim Moran, owner and president of ASM PEO, says in the release. “Engage shares that approach while bringing broader capabilities across HR, compliance, benefits and risk management. That gives our clients access to more resources without losing the level of service they value.”

Engage will absorb the client base and team at ASM PEO, a privately held firm at 25344 Wesley Chapel Blvd. in Lutz. The company was founded in 2002.

Founded by Starkman in 2011, Engage PEO has grown into a top national PEO while maintaining a strong presence in its home state, the company says. Earlier this year, Engage was named to the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in America for the 10th time.

Engage’s earlier Florida deals include the 2022 purchases of Innovative Employer Solutions in St. Petersburg and CEOHR in Sarasota. Its expansion has also taken it outside Florida, including the December 2025 acquisition of San Francisco-based Aspen HR.

Professional employer organizations, or PEOs, take on back-office functions such as payroll and benefits administration for other businesses. The National Association of Professional Employer Organizations says more than 233,000 U.S. businesses use a PEO. In a separate 2025 analysis, the trade group found Florida accounted for 18% of PEO clients, the largest share of any state.

Jones Day acted as legal adviser to Engage PEO in connection with the acquisition while McDaniel Wolff acted as legal adviser to ASM. McHenry Consulting also served as the sell-side consultant to ASM.