* Fluor agrees to buy Stork from Arle Capital
* Expects deal to close in first half of 2016
* To combine with own operations, maintenance business (Adds Stork CEO, detail, background)
By Toby Sterling
AMSTERDAM, Dec 7 (Reuters) - U.S. engineering and construction company Fluor Corporation agreed on Monday to buy Dutch rival Stork for $755 million to strengthen its European and maintenance businesses in the energy sector.
Fluor said it expected the purchase from private equity firm Arle Capital to close in the first half of 2016 and to boost its earnings in the first year following completion.
Stork's main business is in modifying and maintaining large gas, oil and power plants.
Fluor said the Dutch firm would combine well with its own operations in the same industry and give it access to Stork's customer base, which spans the globe but is most focused in Europe.
"Fluor expects ... significant synergies including increased revenues from cross-selling and expansion into new markets," the companies said in a statement.
Fluor will combine Stork with its own operations and maintenance business, which will take the Stork name and operate with a headquarters in the Netherlands under Stork Chief Executive Arnold Steenbakker.
"Fluor mostly works on the capital expenditures oriented side of big (oil and gas) investments, while Stork is in the operational expenditures budget of the same facilities," Steenbakker told reporters.
"So, we pick them up once they've been constructed, that's where Stork begins, and now we can give continuity to the whole life cycle of a structure."
The offer price is around seven times Storks' annual earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of 100 million euros ($109 million), the companies said.
Candover bought Stork in 2008 in a 1.6-billion-euro deal and ownership transferred to Arle in 2010 as part of agreements Candover made when it decided to wind itself down.
Arle combined some of Stork's operations with Scotland's RBG, which it purchased in 2011.
Arle split off one of Stork's former divisions, aerospace component maker Fokker Technologies, in 2012. It sold it for 706 million euros in July.
($1 = 0.9200 euros) (Editing by Jason Neely and Mark Potter)