BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Shaw Group shareholders on Friday overwhelmingly approved the $3 billion sale of the company to CB&I.

Company officials tell The Advocate (http://bit.ly/12EPwXi ) that 83 percent of shareholders voted to approve the sale. A vote of at least 75 percent was required for the deal to go forward.

Earlier this week, CB&I shareholders approved the purchase.

Shaw founder J.M. Bernhard Jr. said he expects the sale to close in mid-February.

Bernhard said he expected shareholders to approve the sale, since CB&I agreed to pay about $46.86 in cash and stock for each Shaw share. He said that was a premium of about 76 percent over the $26.69 that Shaw shares were trading at on July 27, the day before the deal was announced.

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Information from: The Advocate, http://theadvocate.com