Shaw’s sale of unit clears hurdle

The Shaw Group Inc. has cleared one of the last hurdles for the previously announced $300 million sale of its Energy and Chemicals business to Technip, a Paris offshore oil and gas exploration firm.

The Energy and Chemicals sale also helps Baton Rouge-based Shaw meet one of the requirements for Shaw to be acquired by CB&I — having at least $800 million in cash.

The Federal Trade Commission notified Shaw of the early termination of the waiting period for the Energy and Chemicals unit sale under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976.

Shaw and Technip announced their deal on May 21, and the sale is expected to close by the end of this month.

The sale will give Shaw an adjusted cash balance of around $1.3 billion at Aug. 31.

CB&I, of The Woodlands, Texas, with its parent company in the Netherlands, is buying Shaw, a major engineering, construction and fabrication company, for about $3 billion. The deal was announced last week.

CB&I Chief Executive Officer Phillip K. Asherman said last week that CB&I had been looking at Shaw for a couple of years.

Asherman said Shaw’s decision to sell its Energy and Chemicals Group and sell its 20 percent ownership of Westinghouse, both of which have been a drag on earnings, made Shaw more attractive. Shedding the energy and chemicals unit also removed some of the overlap with CB&I’s existing business, he said.

The combined company will be one of the largest in the Western hemisphere with annual revenue of more than $10 billion, a project backlog of more than $28 billion and around 50,000 employees, Asherman said.

The deal is expected to increase 2013 earnings per share by 10 percent or more, he said. CB&I will finance the deal with some of its own cash, some of Shaw’s and $1.9 billion in debt.