Hit by the impact of the credit markets slump in its Financial Services sector, McGraw-Hill saw Q4 earnings per share decline to 43 cents per share (51 if you exclude restructuring costs) from 56 cents a year ago, but CEO Terry McGraw noted that the company still managed to deliver double-digit EPS growth for 2007 – up 22.5% to 2.94.
Measured against comps from an election year, the company’s TV group, a relatively small part of McGraw-Hill, was down for the quarter and year. “Reflecting the absence of political advertising in a non-election year, revenue at the Broadcasting Group in 2007 declined 14.6% to 103 million compared to 2006. In the fourth quarter, revenue was off 14.9% to 28.6 million. Excluding political advertising, time sales increased in the fourth quarter,” McGraw reported.
In an appearance on CNBC after announcing the results, Terry McGraw said "Both our McGraw-Hill education business and our McGraw-Hill information and media business will grow this year in the 6-8% range on the top line" for 2008. But he said most of the growth in the financial services segment, some 2-4%, will come in the second half of the year.
