SandP Global

Corporate history

The predecessor companies of S&P Global have history dating to 1888, when James H. McGraw purchased the American Journal of Railway Appliances. He continued to add further publications, eventually establishing The McGraw Publishing Company in 1899. John A. Hill had also produced several technical and trade publications and in 1902 formed his own business, The Hill Publishing Company. In 1909 both men, having known each other's interests, agreed upon an alliance and combined the book departments of their publishing companies into The McGraw-Hill Book Company. John Hill served as President, with James McGraw as Vice-President. In 1917, the remaining parts of each business were merged into The McGraw-Hill Publishing Company In 1986, McGraw-Hill bought out competitor The Economy Company, then the United States' largest publisher of educational material. The buyout made McGraw-Hill the largest educational publisher in the United States.

In 1964, After Hill died, Merged both McGraw-Hill Publishing Company and McGraw-Hill Book Company into McGraw-Hill, Inc.

In 1979, McGraw-Hill purchased Byte magazine from its owner/publisher Virginia Williamson who then became a vice-president of McGraw-Hill.

In 1995, McGraw-Hill, Inc. became The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. as part of a corporate rebranding.

In 2007, McGraw-Hill launched an online study network, GradeGuru.com, which gave McGraw-Hill an opportunity to connect directly with its end users, the students. The site closed on April 29, 2012.

On October 3, 2011, McGraw-Hill announced it was selling its entire television station group to the E. W. Scripps Company for $212 million. The sale was completed on December 30, 2011. It had been involved in broadcasting since 1972, when it purchased four television stations from a division of Time Inc.

McGraw Hill has produced the "Glencoe" series of books for decades.

On November 26, 2012, McGraw-Hill announced it was selling its entire education division, known as McGraw-Hill Education to Apollo Global Management for $2.5 billion. On March 22, 2013, it announced it had completed the sale for $2.4 billion cash.

On May 1, 2013, shareholders of McGraw-Hill voted to change the company's name to McGraw Hill Financial.

McGraw-Hill divested the subsidiary McGraw-Hill Construction to Symphony Technology Group for US$320 million on September 22, 2014. The sale included Engineering News-Record, Architectural Record, Dodge and Sweet's. McGraw-Hill Construction has been renamed Dodge Data & Analytics.

In February 2016, it was announced that McGraw-Hill Financial would change its name to S&P Global Inc. by the end of April 2016. The company officially changed its name following a shareholder vote on April 27, 2016.

In April 2016, the company announced it was selling J.D. Power & Associates to investment firm XIO Group for $1.1 billion.

Corporate organization

S&P Global now organizes its businesses in four units based on the market in which they are involved.

S&P Global Ratings

S&P Global Ratings provides independent investment research including ratings on various investment instruments.

S&P Global Market Intelligence

S&P Global Market Intelligence is a provider of multi-asset class and real-time data, research, news and analytics to institutional investors, investment and commercial banks, investment advisors and wealth managers, corporations, and universities. Subsidiaries include Leveraged Commentary & Data.

S&P Dow Jones Indices

Launched on July 2, 2012, S&P Dow Jones Indices is the world's largest global resource for index-based concepts, data, and research. It produces the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

S&P Dow Jones Indices calculates over 830,000 indices, publishes benchmarks that provide the basis for 575 ETFs globally with $387 billion in assets invested, and serves as the DNA for $1.5 trillion of the world’s indexed assets.

S&P Global Platts

Headquartered in London, S&P Global Platts is a provider of information and a source of benchmark price assessments for the commodities, energy, petrochemicals, metals, and agriculture markets. It has offices in more than 15 cities, including major energy centres such as London, Dubai, Singapore, and Houston, and international business centres such as São Paulo, Shanghai, and New York City.

Presidents of the company

Acquisitions

During the course of its history, McGraw Hill and from 2016 S&P Global has expanded significantly through acquisition, not just within the publishing industry but also into other areas such as financial services (the purchase of Standard & Poor's in 1966) and broadcasting (the 1972 acquisition of Time-Life Broadcasting). Please note that the publishing and education assets are a part of McGraw-Hill Education from the company separation in 2013.

Note that this list only includes acquisitions made by McGraw-Hill, not its subsidiaries. McGraw-Hill typically does not release financial information regarding its acquisitions or divestitures.

Divestitures

After acquiring a portfolio of diverse companies, McGraw Hill later divested itself of many units to form McGraw Hill Financial which is now S&P Global.

Note that this list only includes divestitures made by McGraw-Hill, not its subsidiaries.

Books published by McGraw-Hill

McGraw-Hill maintained a general publishing division for some years, whose best known book was the (unpublished) Autobiography of Howard Hughes, a fake biography of Howard Hughes by Clifford Irving, which caused a scandal at the time.

The McGraw-Hill Building

The company was based at 1221 Avenue of the Americas, otherwise known as the McGraw-Hill Building, until July 2015.

The building in New York City has received prominent attention. In April 2008, surveillance camera footage was released of Nicholas White, a production manager for BusinessWeek (then published by McGraw-Hill) who was trapped in the building's elevator for 41 hours in October 1999.

Connection to the family of George W. Bush

The McGraws and the George W. Bush/George H. W. Bush family have close ties dating back several generations. According to McGraw-Hill, Barbara Bush is a member of its advisory board. The California Test Bureau division has provided testing material integral to No Child Left Behind, a George W. Bush initiative.

McGraw-Hill Federal Credit Union

Established in 1935, the McGraw-Hill Federal Credit Union originally served employees of the McGraw-Hill companies in New York City only. The credit union moved from its location inside the McGraw-Hill building to East Windsor, New Jersey, in 2005. Its accounts are insured by the National Credit Union Administration. It provides savings, checking accounts, CDs, money-market accounts, IRAs, credit cards, auto loans, and home mortgages.

Awards

In 1999, the National Building Museum presented the McGraw-Hill Companies with its annual Honor Award for the corporation's contributions to the built environment.