McGraw Hill seeks brand awareness

Financial firm now S&P Global

Mention McGraw Hill, and textbooks probably come to mind. Longtime television viewers in Denver might even remember it as the owner of KMGH until 2011.

What McGraw Hill isn’t associated with as much is its hefty financial ratings, index and research business that employs about 20,000 people globally, including 5,000 in the U.S. and 500 from Boulder to Centennial.

Three years ago, McGraw-Hill Cos. sold McGraw-Hill Education to private equity firm Apollo Group for $2.4 billion, leaving it with McGraw Hill Financial. But that business line has lived in the shadow of Standard & Poor’s, the originator of the S&P 500, which McGraw Hill acquired in 1966.

This week, McGraw Hill Financial rebranded itself as S&P Global, unveiling a new logo, new subsidiary names and even a changed stock ticker from MHFI to SPGI.

The name change is designed to build awareness of the brand, create a more unified corporate identity and encourage greater collaboration in employment hubs such as metro Denver, said Courtney Geduldig, a company spokeswoman.

Put another way, if more people know what the company is about, it will have an easier time recruiting top talent.

And metro Denver, also home to another big financial information provider — IHS in Douglas County — is a place where S&P Global is looking to add workers in the future.

“Denver is a strategic location,” Geduldig said. “It is a desirable place to live, and we are able to get the kinds of people with the skills we need.”

Three of the company’s four business lines have a presence in metro Denver. After New York, Colorado ranks highest among the states most important to the company’s operations.