Topic: Growth Stocks

Wall Street Stock Forecaster Hotline – Friday, September 16, 2011

Article Excerpt

MCGRAW-HILL COMPANIES INC., $45.29, New York symbol MHP, rose 17% this week after it announced that it will split into two separate, publicly traded companies. One of these new firms, McGraw-Hill Markets, will sell a variety of financial-information products. This business will include Standard & Poor’s, which provides credit ratings on bonds, and McGraw-Hill’s J.D. Power market-research firm. McGraw-Hill Markets will have annual revenue of $4 billion. International sales will account for 40% of that total. The other company, McGraw-Hill Education, will publish textbooks for schools and colleges. This business will have $2.4 billion of annual revenue. McGraw-Hill still plans to sell its nine TV stations, which account for 2% of its revenue. The company is still working on the details of the split, but it aims to hand out shares of McGraw-Hill Education as a special dividend by the end of 2012. This will probably be a tax-free transaction: shareholders will not have to pay capital-gains taxes until they…