It took Jim Bernhard more than two decades to build The Shaw Group, which was acquired by CB&I in 2013 for more than $3 billion. It’s taken him just two years to build a new network of companies that may soon rival what The Shaw Group did in size and scope, says Business Report Editor Stephanie Riegel in her latest column.
“For much of the past year, Bernhard and his growing number of seasoned associates at Bernhard Capital Partners—the private equity firm he founded after retiring from The Shaw Group in the wake of its acquisition by CB&I—have been systematically gobbling up mechanical, electrical, and industrial construction firms in the region,” Riegel writes. “They’ve also acquired pipe fabrication facilities, major engineering companies and environmental consulting firms that, together, have offices, employees and job sites throughout the country.”
The deals are complicated and their terms have not been disclosed, except to note that all the companies remain independently owned and operated. But whatever their ownership structure on paper, the companies all fall under the umbrella of BCP, which has invested in them all, either directly or through a separate holding company.
“In the legal and corporate finance world, that may be a critically important detail,” writes Riegel. “As far as the general public is concerned it’s a distinction without a difference. Bernhard is the common thread, the man behind the curtain, and he’s putting together something really big in Baton Rouge. Again.”
Bernhard has declined to discuss what he’s doing from BCP’s corporate offices atop City Plaza II downtown, Riegel says.
“Presumably, that’s because his private equity firm is still in the ‘quiet period’ mandated by the Securities and Exchange Commission during fundraising. Last fall, BCP filed documents with the SEC indicating its intention to raise $750 million for its debut energy services fund,” she writes. “In September, an online trade publication that tracks the private equity market, PE Hub, reported that BCP had $600 million committed so far from limited partners and expected to reach its goal within the next couple of months.”
The four portfolio companies under the BCP umbella have amassed an estimated 14,000 employees this year alone, says Riegel.
“That’s impressive, though to put it in perspective, it’s about 50% fewer than the 23,000 employees The Shaw Group had when CB&I acquired it in 2013, and it’s only a fraction of the size of some of the biggest players in the industry—like the 40,000-employee Amec Foster Wheeler in Houston,” she writes. “Where, exactly, it is going will be interesting to watch. At the moment, there are more questions than answers.”
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