H.I.G. Capital has completed the acquisition of Phoenix ME Limited, the London-headquartered specialist mechanical and electrical engineering contractor, with founder and CEO Lee Compton reinvesting alongside H.I.G. and Jim Arnold joining as incoming chairman.

Phoenix ME Limited is a London-headquartered specialist mechanical and electrical engineering contractor founded in 1931, wholly owned prior to this transaction by Cityside Electrical Co, the holding company controlled by Lee Compton. For the year to 30 September 2025,

Phoenix reported revenue of £319 million, up 8%, and pre-tax profit of £17 million, up 55%, with operating margin improving from 3.5% to 5% and headcount rising 12% to 469. Cash at year-end stood at £38 million. Phoenix entered FY2026 with a record secured order book exceeding £800 million over four years, with revenue expected to reach approximately £400 million in 2026. Its core end markets are data centres, life sciences, infrastructure and commercial, with clients including CyrusOne, UBS and Virgin Media.

H.I.G. Capital is a Miami-headquartered global alternative investment firm with $75 billion in AUM. Advisors: not disclosed.

The structural driver is the data centre and life sciences construction pipeline creating sustained demand for specialist M&E contractors that cannot be satisfied by the generalist construction market. Data centre electrical and mechanical installations require expertise in power distribution, precision cooling, containment systems and commissioning at redundancy levels not found in standard commercial construction. Such is a discipline Phoenix has built over 95 years and that H.I.G. is buying at a moment of peak demand.

Pre-tax profit growth of 55% on 8% revenue growth signals that Phoenix has pricing power in a supply-constrained specialist market, not just revenue uplift from market conditions.

The founder reinvestment and management retention structure is deliberate. At £319 million revenue, Phoenix is scaling through a phase where the personal client relationships Compton holds are the primary competitive asset, external management would risk losing the customer trust that generates the £800 million order book.

For the sector, H.I.G.'s acquisition of a 95-year-old UK M&E contractor with a record data centre and life sciences pipeline confirms that specialist engineering services businesses are now firmly in institutional private equity's investable universe, attracting the same capital previously reserved for infrastructure platforms.

Source: hig.com / constructionenquirer.com / prnewswire.com / bebeez.eu