S&P Global Inc. (prior to 2016, McGraw Hill Financial, Inc., and prior to 2013, The McGraw–Hill Companies, Inc.) is an American publicly traded corporation headquartered in Manhattan, New York. Its primary areas of business are financial information, analytics, and energy and commodities intelligence. It is the parent company of S&P Global Ratings, S&P Global Energy, S&P Global Market Intelligence, and the Indian credit rating agency CRISIL. It is also the majority owner of the S&P Dow Jones Indices joint venture. "S&P" is a shortening of "Standard and Poor's."
History 19th century The predecessor companies of S&P Global have histories 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.
20th century 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 1964, after Hill died, both McGraw–Hill Publishing Company and McGraw–Hill Book Company merged into McGraw–Hill, Inc. McGraw–Hill purchased credit rating agency Standard & Poor's from Paul Talbot Babson in 1966. In 1979, McGraw–Hill acquired Byte magazine from its owner/publisher Virginia Williamson, who then became a vice-president of McGraw–Hill. 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 1994, McGraw–Hill's broadcasting division signed a deal with ABC, due partly to the fact that its stations in San Diego (KGTV) and Indianapolis (WRTV) had already been aligned with the network, and that Denver (KMGH-TV) and Bakersfield (KERO-TV) joined the ABC family (Bakersfield sister station KERO-TV was also involved in the deal between McGraw–Hill and ABC; however, that station had to wait for its affiliation contract with CBS to expire in March 1996, before it could finally switch to ABC).
21st century In 2009, McGraw Hill sold Business Week to Bloomberg.
In October 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 in December 2011. It had been involved in broadcasting since 1972, when it purchased four television stations from a division of Time Inc. The sale included McGraw–Hill Broadcasting's stations KERO-TV and KZKC-LP Bakersfield; KGTV and KZSD-LP San Diego; KZCS-LP Colorado Springs; flagship station KMGH-TV and KZCO-LD Denver; KZFC-LP Fort Collins; and WRTV Indianapolis.
In November 2012, McGraw–Hill announced it was selling its entire education division, known as McGraw–Hill Education to Apollo Global Management for $2.5 billion. In March 2013, McGraw–Hill announced it had completed the sale for $2.4 billion cash. In May 2013, shareholders of McGraw–Hill voted to change the company's name to McGraw Hill Financial.
In September 2014, McGraw–Hill divested the subsidiary McGraw–Hill Construction to Symphony Technology Group for US$320 million. The sale included Engineering News-Record, Architectural Record, Dodge and Sweet's. McGraw–Hill Construction has been renamed Dodge Data & Analytics.
In February 2016, McGraw–Hill announced that McGraw–Hill Financial would change its name to S&P Global Inc. by the end of April 2016. McGraw Hill Financial officially changed its name following a shareholder vote on April 27, 2016. In April 2016, McGraw–Hill announced that it was selling J.D. Power and Associates to investment firm XIO Group for $1.1 billion.
In November 2020, S&P Global agreed to acquire IHS Markit analytics company in a $44 billion transaction. In 2023, S&P sold the former IHS engineering operations to KKR & Co., which rebranded as Accuris.
In October 2025, S&P Global announced a deal to buy markets data and analytics firm With Intelligence for $1.8 billion.
On July 1, 2026, S&P Global completed the spin-off of its Mobility division into an independent publicly traded company, Mobility Global Inc.
Corporate organization S&P Global organizes its businesses into divisions, 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 Energy Headquartered in London, S&P Global Energy, formerly 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, Tokyo, Dubai, Singapore, and Houston, and international business centres such as São Paulo, Shanghai, and New York City.
S&P Dow Jones Indices Launched in July 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 $1.5 trillion of the world's indexed assets.
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, insurance companies, investment advisors and wealth managers, corporations, and universities. Subsidiaries and brands include Capital IQ, EViews, Journal of Commerce, Panjiva, and Global Insight. Presidents James H. McGraw (1917–1928) Malcolm Muir (1928–1937) James H. McGraw Jr. (1937–1950) Curtis W. McGraw (1950–1953) Donald C. McGraw (1953–1968) Shelton Fisher (1968–1974) Harold McGraw Jr. (1974–1983) Joseph Dionne (1983–1998) Harold W. McGraw III (1998–2013) Douglas L. Peterson (2013–2024) Martina Cheung (2024–present)
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). The publishing and education assets are a part of McGraw–Hill Education from the company separation in 2013:
Date of acquisitionAsset acquiredIndustry1920Newton Falls Paper Company -1928A.W. Shaw Company Publisher of magazines and textbooks1950sGregg CompanyPublisher of vocational textbooks1953Companies of Warren C. Platts, including PlattsPublisher of petroleum industry information1954Blakiston, from DoubledayPublisher of medical textbooks1961F.W. Dodge Corporation Publisher of construction industry information1965California Test BureauDeveloper of educational testing systems1966Standard & Poor'sFinancial Services1966Shepard's CitationsLegal publisher1968National Radio InstituteCorrespondence School1970The Ryerson PressEducational and trade publishing1972Television Stations of Time Life BroadcastingBroadcasting1979Data Resources Inc.Economic data, models and consulting1986The Economy CompanyEducational publishing1988Random House Schools and CollegesEducational publishing1988CQI ComStockFinancial Services1993Macmillan/McGraw–Hill School Publishing CompanyEducational publishing1996Times Mirror Higher EducationEducational publishing1997Micropal Group LimitedFinancial Services1999Appleton & Lange Publisher of medical information2000Tribune Education, including NTC/Contemporary Publisher of supplementary educational materials2001Mayfield Publishing CompanyPublisher of humanities and social science textbooks2004Capital IQCompany information aggregation2005J.D. Power & Associates Marketing information provider2015SNL FinancialFinancial News2018Kensho Technologies Artificial Intelligence2019451 Research Global IT research and advisory2022IHS MarkitInformation Provider2022The Climate ServiceInformation Provider2023ChartIQCharting Provider2023TradenetVessel-Tracking Platform2023TruSight Solutions LLC Third-party Risk Assessments2023Market Scan Information Systems, Inc Automotive Data Provider2024Visible Alpha Consensus Estimates Data2024World Hydrogen LeadersHydrogen Information Provider2025With Intelligence Private markets data and intelligence provider 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:
Date of divestitureAsset relinquishedIndustry1996 Shepard's legal publisher to Times Mirror Publishing2009Vista Resources to Guidepoint Global Expert Networks2011Television station group to the E. W. Scripps Company Broadcasting2013McGraw–Hill Education to Apollo Global Management Publishing2013Aviation Week to Penton Publishing2014McGraw–Hill Construction to Symphony Technology GroupPublishing2016J.D. Power & Associates to XIO GroupMarketing information provider2016Equity Research Group to CFRA Equity researchJuly 1, 2026S&P Global Mobility, spun off as Mobility Global Inc.Automotive data and analytics This list only includes divestitures made by S&P Global, not its subsidiaries.
McGraw–Hill Building
The company was based at 1221 Avenue of the Americas until July 2015. The predecessor company McGraw Hill Inc. had been based at 330 West 42nd Street and both have been known as The McGraw–Hill Building, a name originally used for a prior headquarters at 469 Tenth Avenue.
Connection to the family of George W. Bush The McGraws and the George W. Bush family have close ties dating back several generations. Harold McGraw Jr. (deceased) was a member of the national grant advisory and founding board of the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy.
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. In February 2019, the credit union announced plans to merge with Pentagon Federal Credit Union, completing to convert customers to those of PenFed on May 1, 2019.
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.
In 2023, S&P Global was recognized in Newsweek's ranking of America's Greenest Companies 2024 for its commitment to sustainability.
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