McGrawHill completes Business Week sale

McGraw-Hill Companies, the family controlled publisher, announced yesterday it has completed the sale of its flagship business title to Bloomberg LP.

Business Week was sold to the financial news agency for $5 million in cash, while Bloomberg has also assumed an unspecified amount of Business Week's liabilities.

Harold McGraw III, fourth-generation chairman, president and chief executive of the McGraw-Hill Companies, said: "I am grateful to everyone who helped build Business Week into the globally respected, flagship brand that it is, and I am proud that its name and all that it represents – independence, integrity and insightful reporting – will live on at Bloomberg."

The sale of Business Week, one of McGraw-Hill's longest-running publications, will enable the company to continue refocusing its attention on its other, larger business areas of financial services, education and business information, said the statement released yesterday. The company also announced it expects to make a $9.3 billion pre-tax gain from the sale in the fourth quarter of 2009.

The 121-year old publisher has been "exploring strategic options" for Business Week since July and announced in October it was to sell the title to New York-based Bloomberg. (Click here to read our coverage of the story) The magazine has been suffering from a decline in circulation and advertising revenue affecting many weekly news publications.

Harold McGraw-Hill is the fourth-generation of the founding McGraw family to work in the business and the sixth family president. Year on year revenues for McGraw-Hill, which owns brands including Standard & Poor's rating agency and Platts, dropped from $6.8 billion in January 2008 to $6.4 billion in 2009.

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