Late last week, Bernhard reduced his shareholding in Shaw to 143,356 shares from 1,131,603, according to filings with U.S. securities regulators on Monday, in a sale that would have raised more than $45 million.

In criticizing the deal price of $46 per share that Bernhard negotiated for Shaw, H. Kevin Byun at Denali Investors LLC speculated in a letter that Bernhard may have had political ambitions in Louisiana that influenced the timing of the sale to CB&I.

Denali, which had said it owns 1.1 percent of Shaw, was asking for a special committee to investigate Bernhard for potential conflicts of interest in selling off the Louisiana-based company.

But the $3 billion deal, comprising $41 per share in cash and $5 per share in CB&I stock when it was launched at the end of July, won approval from 83 percent of Shaw's outstanding shares on December 21.

Shares of Shaw closed at $46.61 per share on Monday, up 42 cents on the day.

(Reporting by Braden Reddall in San Francisco)

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