The story
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.
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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.
From Wikipedia’s article on S&P Global, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.8