Technical and maintenance services businesses should, on paper, be hard to scale internationally. They depend on local engineers, country-specific certifications and customer relationships built over years. Yet some of the strongest international growth stories in our portfolio have come from exactly this subsector.
Clarke Energy is one of them. Between ECI’s investment and the sale to Kohler’s Power group, turnover grew by 50%, driven by expansion into multiple new geographies. Faye Maughan, Investment Director at ECI, and Lewis Bantin, Partner in ECI’s Commercial team and part of the Clarke investment, set out the four drivers that can make international growth an attractive route to growth for maintenance services businesses.
1. Recurring service revenues make expansion practical
International growth becomes materially easier when future revenues are predictable. Installation work is often lower margin, cyclical and hard to forecast. The real value in a maintenance services business sits in the ongoing relationship with the customer.
Every new facility Clarke delivered secured the rights to future parts and maintenance. That gave the business exceptional visibility over demand and a highly recurring revenue stream.
“The magic here was the in-perpetuity parts and maintenance revenue stream,” Lewis recalls. “We knew exactly when engines would require servicing and what parts would be needed.”
That predictability funded expansion. It let management invest in new territories, recruit engineering talent and pursue acquisitions without depending on winning the next large project.
2. The expertise travels, even if the people don’t
Many businesses struggle abroad because local markets demand different products. Technical services businesses are often the exception. The more specialised the equipment or end service, the more consistent the engineering challenge across geographies.
Clarke supported hospitals in the UK, fertiliser plants in India, mining operations in Australia and industrial sites across Africa and Asia. Very different customers, very similar underlying engineering. Local engineers were recruited and trained in each market, but core design standards and operational disciplines were shared globally.
“If you looked at a plant in India, a plant in the UK or a plant in Australia, they would have looked broadly similar,” Lewis explains.
That consistency also mattered to Clarke’s OEM partner, GE. A broader footprint meant GE could rely on a single delivery standard for its Jenbacher engines across markets, which reinforced the commercial relationship as Clarke scaled.
3. Local trust still has to be earned
Portable expertise does not mean international growth can be run from head office. Clarke’s success depended on investing in local capability: recruiting, training and retaining engineers in each country so the business could respond quickly and build relationships on the ground.
The drivers of demand varied by market. Coal mine methane capture in Australia. Anaerobic digestion in the UK. Security of electricity supply in India. What stayed constant was Clarke’s reputation for delivering specialist engineering work to a high standard. Customers want local responsiveness and confidence that standards hold steady wherever the business operates. Both matter equally.
4. Growth rarely follows a single route
International expansion rarely follows one path. Some markets are best entered organically, by recruiting local teams and building from scratch. Others are entered faster through acquisition.
The deciding factor is usually the maturity of the local ecosystem. Where established competitors and a strong talent pool exist, acquisition can give immediate access to engineers, customer relationships and operational know-how. Clarke’s entry into the US worked this way, acquiring a local partner and using that platform to accelerate growth. In less developed markets, organic build made more sense.
This dual approach, matched to the market rather than forced by ideology, drove the 50% turnover growth that took Clarke to its sale to Kohler.
