McGraw Hill exploring sale of J.D. Power

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Oct 30 (Reuters) - McGraw Hill Financial Inc is looking at selling off its J.D. Power unit, best known for car quality and reliability ratings, as the owner of the Standard & Poor's ratings services focuses on capital and commodity markets.

Reuters had reported that McGraw Hill had hired Morgan Stanley to assist with the sale process for J.D. Power, which could be worth as much as $1 billion.

McGraw Hill said on Thursday it was looking at "strategic alternatives" for J.D. Power, which is expected to generate revenue of nearly $350 million in 2016.

J.D. Power gets a majority of its business from the automotive sector. It is a part of McGraw Hill's commodities and commercial markets business, which also includes the energy and metals data company Platts.

Westlake Village, California-based J.D. Power could be more valuable to a market research or consumer analytics company, McGraw Hill said.

McGraw Hill - with iconic brands like S&P Capital IQ, S&P Dow Jones Indices and CRISIL - has in recent years divested some of its other non-core business units.

The company sold its education business to Apollo Global Management LLC for $2.4 billion in 2013 and its construction business to private equity firm Symphony Technology Group for $320 million last year.

However, McGraw Hill bought data firm SNL Financial for $2.23 billion this year.

McGraw Hill's shares were up 0.5 percent at $94.69 in early trading on Friday.

(Reporting by Rachel Chitra in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Savio D'Souza)