Kazakhstan looked like a good market for Actavo. A big oil and gas industry. Lots of construction: rigs, refineries, artificial islands and ports. Actavo specialises in labour-intensive technical work. Its industrial division builds complex scaffolding, maintains equipment, installs insulation and cladding, cleans, paints and removes asbestos. Actavo got into the Kazakh market in 2015. It formed two joint ventures with local companies and hired 500 staff.  At the time Actavo was in empire-building mode. The following year it bought Atlantic Engineering Services in the US for an estimated price of $30-40 million. And since 2012 it had ramped up its UK…

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