Former Shaw Group execs launch debut energy services fund

Bernhard Capital Partners (BCP) is targeting $750 million, and LPs have already committed $600 million, the source said. The firm is expected to raise the remainder over the next two months.

Execs at BCP did not respond to a request for comment. Atlantic-Pacific Capital is working as global placement agent on the fundraising.

BCP, based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was formed in 2013 by Jim Bernhard, founder, chairman and chief executive officer of The Shaw Group, and Jeff Jenkins, former chief operating officer of Shaw Environmental and Infrastructure.

The firm’s other executives include Managing Director David de Laureal, a former executive at TowerBrook Capital Partners, and Operating Partner Foster Duncan, a former member of KD Capital, an affiliate of KKR & Co.

Jim Bernhard and Shaw’s management sold Shaw Group in 2013 to Chicago Bridge & Iron. Bernhard had grown the company from a small pipe fabrication business into a Fortune 500 energy services company, according to BCP’s website.

Bernhard Capital targets “businesses providing critical services to the energy sector, throughout the upstream, midstream, downstream, and power verticals,” according to its website. The firm has already begun investing the fund, including two deals with KBR Inc announced in July. KBR and BCP agreed to form a new, equally owned company, Brown & Root Industrial Services. KBR’s existing Industrial Services Americas will become part of the new company, offering maintenance services, turnarounds and small capital expenditure projects, according to a KBR press release announcing the deals.

Also, BCP portfolio company EPIC Piping agreed to buy KBR’s Canadian pipe fabrication facility, the press release said.