Jim Bernhard, a Baton Rouge-based business executive and civic leader who created and grew some of the most successful companies to come out of Louisiana, died Sunday after a brief illness, his family confirmed. He was 71.

During a career that spanned more than four decades, James M. Bernhard Jr. was perhaps best known for founding and growing The Shaw Group from a pipe fabrication company into a publicly traded, industrial services powerhouse with a global footprint and spot on the Fortune 500 list.

After selling the company in 2013, he founded Bernhard Capital Partners, a private equity firm that is now one of the largest in the Gulf South with more than $5 billion in assets under management and companies across the country in the energy services, industrial and utilities sector.

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