McGraw Hill to buy SNL Financial for $2.23bn

McGraw Hill Financial will buy SNL Financial for $2.23 billion. SNL Financial, which is based in Charlottesville, Va., provides data, commentary, and services for banking, real estate, energy and other sectors, reports the Wall Street Journal. For New York-based McGraw Hill, which owns Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services, the deal would expand on its other data services, such as S&P Capital IQ and energy-focused Platt’s. S&P also has been exploring adding to its index unit, which uses financial data to create tradable products.

McGraw Hill said SNL will complement S&P Capital IQ’s platform in banking and insurance. “We are enthusiastic about SNL because it is a fast-growing, highly complementary subscription-based business that will enable us to accelerate our strategy to be the leading provider of transparent and independent benchmarks, analytics, data and research across the global capital, commodity and corporate markets,” said McGraw Hill Chief Executive Douglas L. Peterson in a news release.

The company maintained its full-year earnings forecast of between $4.35 and $4.45 per share, excluding special items, despite expectations that the deal would reduce profit by 5 cents to 7 cents, writes Reuters. Tax benefits of about $550 million will mitigate the financial impact of the acquisition, the company said in a statement. New York-based McGraw Hill said it expected the deal to add to diluted earnings per share in 2016, excluding amortization and special items.