Brown & Root, once one of the most famous companies in the industrial world, never really went away. But due to corporate mergers and acquisitions, the name had been dormant for more than 15 years.
As 10/12 Industry Report details in a feature from the current issue, that changed in July when Bernhard Capital Partners, the energy-focused private equity firm co-founded by former Shaw Group head Jim Bernhard, announced that it would partner with Houston’s KBR to re-establish the Brown & Root brand. With operations throughout the United States, Mexico and Canada, Brown & Root Industrial Services will have more than 6,000 employees, officials say, and will provide a range of industrial services for refineries and petrochemical, chemical and manufacturing plants.
“If you’ve been in this industry for any length of time, you know someone who has worked for Brown & Root,” says Fred McManus, the new Brown & Root’s president of maintenance. “That was something that Jim came up with: ‘Let’s resurrect that name that most of us know.’”
McManus and CEO Andy Dupuy are former Shaw executives, and they say the rapidly growing portfolio Bernhard is amassing under BCP is reminiscent of their former employer.
“The only difference is he’s got more money this time,” Dupuy says with a laugh. With access to more capital, Dupuy suggests, Bernhard’s new enterprises have a chance to grow even faster than Shaw did.
Other companies in BCP’s portfolio include Bernhard Mechanical, the mechanical construction company founded by Jim Bernhard’s grandfather nearly a century ago; EP Breaux Electrical; Arkansas engineering firm TME; Bernhard Energy, which promises to develop district energy systems and power plants; and EPIC Piping, a pipe fabrication company.
The Brown & Root name has at times been tied to controversy. The firm bankrolled much of Lyndon Johnson’s political career, and allegedly those ties helped the firm win lucrative contracts during the Vietnam War. Similar accusations were made during the second Iraq war, when critics focused on the relationship between parent company Halliburton and its former CEO, then-U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney.
But politics aside, the Brown & Root name brings instant name recognition and credibility in the industrial marketplace, officials say.
“The name is working really well for us as we go out to the industry and try to sell our wares,” Dupuy says.
Read the full feature. Send your comments to editor@1012industryreport.com. And be sure to check out more stories from the current issue of 10/12 Industry Report.
