McGraw Hill Financial, Inc. (MHFI) will be offloading McGraw Hill Construction to Symphony Technology Group – a California-based private equity firm – for $320 million in cash. The transaction is expected to conclude in the last quarter of 2014, subject to regulatory approval.
McGraw Hill Financial has been shedding its non-core operations to focus on the global benchmarks, data and analytics business. As a result, the company was exploring opportunities to sell the construction unit, which provides data, news and insights at a domestic level, since Mar 2014.
This sell-off marks the end of McGraw Hill Financial’s portfolio restructuring. The company sought financial advice from Evercore Partners Inc. (EVR) for the transaction.
McGraw Hill Financial, which owns one of the top credit rating agencies Standard & Poor’s (‘S&P’), had earlier sold its broadcating segment to The E. W. Scripps Company (SSP) for $212 million in 2011 and in 2012 it sold the education unit to Apollo Global Management, LLC (APO) for $2.4 billion. The company has also sold its several publications including Aviation Week and Businessweek.
In addition, to aid its goal of emerging as a leader in the global analytics arena, the company has made strategic investments in businesses, which are expected to help it in generating long-term profitability. The formation of S&P Dow Jones Indices coupled with S&P Capital IQ’s acquisitions of Credit Market Analysis Limited, QuantHouse, R2 Financial Technologies and TheMarkets.com along with a significant stake (68%) in India’s leading rating agency CRISIL, position it well against its competitors to grab a wider market through superior functionality and investor oriented services. These in turn will help boost the top-and bottom-line.
At present, McGraw Hill Financial is a Zacks Rank # 2 (Buy) stock.
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report
To read this article on Zacks.com click here.
Get all Zacks Research Reports and be alerted to fast-breaking buy and sell opportunities every trading day.
Be the first to comment