Television has long been a tiny part of The McGraw-Hill Companies and Wall Street analysts have asked CEO Terry McGraw several times on quarterly conference calls why the company doesn’t sell it off as an obviously non-core business. Now McGraw-Hill is doing just that.
McGraw-Hill announced before the stock market opened Tuesday (6/14) that it has retained Morgan Stanley & Co. to pursue the divestiture of its Broadcasting Group. “The television stations in the Group are in desirable markets and should be attractive to strategic and financial buyers with a focus on media,” the announcement stated.
The move comes as the TV group has been growing revenues and profits, with revenues up 18.3% in 2010. The growth continued in Q1, with revenues up 10.2%.
McGraw-Hill’s Broadcast Group consists of only four stations, all ABC affiliates: KMGH-TV Denver, KGTV-TV San Diego, WRTV-TV Indianapolis and KGTV-TV Bakersfield, CA. It also has Azteca America affiliates on digital multicast channels and/or LPTVs in Denver, Fort Collins, Colorado Springs, San Diego and Bakersfield.
Just last year McGraw-Hill sold BusinessWeek to Bloomberg, greatly reducing its Information & Media division. Getting out of TV may not be the end of McGraw-Hill’s reshuffling of its businesses, either.
“The planned divestiture is part of a continuing portfolio review that McGraw-Hill is undertaking across the enterprise to reevaluate its strategic core and ensure it is appropriately allocating capital to generate shareholder value. The Company is also evaluating G&A [general and administrative] costs across the corporation to ensure it continues to support its businesses efficiently,” the announcement stated.
“McGraw-Hill has successfully evolved its business mix over the years and is committed to driving superior shareholder value by focusing on high-growth global brands and businesses,” said CEO Terry McGraw.
