Good morning, and welcome to McGraw Hill Financial's 2015 Annual Shareholders Meeting. The meeting is being conducted at the Conrad New York Hotel in New York City. At this time, I would like to inform you that the call is being recorded for broadcast and that all participants are in a listen only mode.
Forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, including projections, estimates and descriptions of future events. Any such statements are based on current expectations and current economic conditions and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from the results anticipated in these forward looking statements. We direct listeners and the audience to the cautionary statements contained in our periodic reports filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Please be advised that we have certified lists of shareholders of record as of the close of business on March 9, who are entitled to vote at this annual shareholders meeting. Such lists have been opened for inspection by shareholders.
We also have copies of the notice of meeting, proxy materials, annual report and affidavits of mailing relating to this annual meeting. The affidavits will be filed with the records of the annual meeting. The Board of Directors has designated 2 representatives of Computershare Trust Company to act as inspectors of election for this meeting. Representatives of Computershare Trust Company, James Kishka and Stephen Myers are present here today. They have been duly sworn and the results will also be filed with the records of the annual meeting.
In addition, shares of common stock representing approximately 88% of the outstanding shares of MacGregor Financial and representing more than a majority of the votes entitled to be cast at the Annual Meeting are represented either in person or by proxy. Chairman, the Annual meeting has been duly convened, a quorum is present and the business of the annual meeting should proceed.
This is difficult for me. We used to have a podium that had a button on it that went up and down. Our relatively new CEO is a little taller than I am, and so I have to put up with this. So if you can't see me, whatever. All right.
Good morning, everybody. I'm Terry McGraw, and I'm the Chairman of McGrail Financial. And I want to thank everybody here for your attendance and for being here and being a part of all of this. Your commitment, your loyalty and your sentiments about the company are obviously very, very important to us. As employees, as management, as Board of Directors, our job is to serve our shareholders and we're very appreciative.
And we're very appreciative of those that are on the phone and on the web page on that one. Thank you for taking time out to be part of all of that. As everybody knows, to my right, sitting at the dais besides Scott Bennett is Doug Peterson. He's our President and CEO and a Director and a pretty terrific guy as well. Next, I'd like to introduce a nominated Director, who is standing for election by the shareholders for the first time, Rebecca Jacoby.
And Rebecca, hold on now, don't they're quick. Gevar brings a vast experience in technology and data right in the heart of everything we're about. And they are essential elements in terms of all of our business, whether they're benchmarks data, information, benchmarks, so forth. She is the Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer of a fabulous company called Cisco Systems. She's had a number of positions of increasing responsibility in technology, operations, manufacturing since joining Cisco in 1995.
Rebecca, your first annual meeting now, would you please stand up? We are really very, very pleased. You bring another level of depth and substance to our Board, and we look forward to all of that. Now it's my pleasure to introduce the other members of the Board. And again, we have an outstanding source of tremendous pride for the company.
And by the way, we have always been blessed past and present with a terrific Board. We had some former Board members at our dinner last night, and we were able to single them out in all of that. But it has always served this company extremely well. I would kindly ask our directors to stand as I say their names and remain the proxy and the annual reports and all of that, I can't do justice in time wise to all the background of these directors. But if you take a look at the proxy and read some of their bios, you'll see exactly what I mean in doing that.
So let me introduce the Chairman of the U. K. Financial Reporting Council, Sir Wynn Bishop. Our next one is the retired Executive Chairman of Accenture, Mr. Bill Green.
Chairman of KCG Holdings, Inc, and I've got a lot more to say about him in just a little bit, is Ed Haldeman, Charles Haldeman. The next one is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Aberdale Holdings LLC, and my brother, Robert McGraw. And the next one is the Founder and Chairman of the Strategic Investment Group, Hilda Ochoa Berlinberg. The next one is the Chairman of the BT Group. I just this is a hard one for me.
He's the Chairman of just about everything in the world from Easyjet to Barclays, you name it, and all of that. But we'll just list them as the Chairman of the BT Group, Sir Michael Rake, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of State Farm Insurance Companies, Mr. Ed Rust the Chairman Emeritus of Eli Lilly and Company, my good friend Sydney Turello, who's going to help me understand what an Emeritus does and all of those kind of things. And I'm really looking forward to that, Sydney. And then Dick Thornburg is the Vice Chairman of Coursera Capital and of course before that Credit Suisse and a whole host of things.
Ladies and gentlemen, your Board of Directors. 1 of our directors, Curt Schmoke, who's getting ready for the Olympics, could not be with us today. He is recovering from a knee injury, which required surgery and all that. Still, I wanted to take a moment to recognize Curt. He just became the 8th President of the University of Baltimore.
The students, faculty and administration and the entire university community will benefit immensely, just as we have from Curt's intellect and leadership, and we send him our best wishes for speedy recovery. And we also want to note that all of us hurt badly when we talk about Baltimore of the recent events there. And there's just no way of explaining any positive to it. We just hope it ends rapidly. And we can begin once and for all this healing process within our country that needs to take place, because we don't need any more Volibars.
And I know the people of Baltimore are hurting badly, and our sentiments and our passions are with them in that. Now I want to acknowledge 2 other directors. As many of you know, I will not be standing for reelection at this meeting. And the Board of Directors has met and convened and come back with a recommendation that we will be voting on that our next Chairman will be Ed Haldeman. And I thought maybe I'd take an opportunity to talk a little bit about Ed for a minute.
But before I do say do so, let me tell you how grateful to all the people who have contributed to the success of our company over many generations. Since our founding, literally 127 years ago in 18/88, the McGraw Hill teams have continually met the transformative need of our customers and markets. And I have all the confidence in the world that the men and women of this great company will And again And again, you've got the proxy statement, so you can read it. He went to Dartmouth College. He graduated summa cum laude.
I had a hard time even spelling that in all of that. He then went on to Harvard Law School and got his J. D. He didn't do as well as he did in the undergrad. He only got cum laude on that one.
Then he went to the Harvard Business School and became a Baker Scholar out of there. You imagine how proud his parents and how poor they are now in all of that? But after all of that, he then went to Kuekenbiler in the Investment Management business, and that's where he got his start. Then he became the President and COO of United Asset Management, founded by Norman Reamer and all that. And by the way, when I was at GTE in 1975 after getting out of business school, I knew Norton Reimer pretty well.
And we set up a pension investment plan for GTE. A number of us worked on this project that hired 56 money managers for the plant because they were such a brain drain from the larger investment firms. And therefore, they didn't have size money and you had to do this. Well, United Asset Management took our blueprint and made it public. And you and I need to have a conversation about copyright at some point, but that was great.
Then he went on to be CEO of Delaware Investments and then moved from there to be the Chairman, CEO and President of Putnam Investment, again, another one of the great firms And then he became CEO, if that's not enough, at the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, known as Freddie Mac. Freddie Mac is the 2nd largest source of mortgage financing in the United States. And one of the things that makes very capable and knowing the financial markets is his very high sense of values and his ethical standard, which is at the least everything we are about at McGraw Hill. And I think in this role, we all can take a great deal of pride in who Ed is, not just what Ed has been able to do. We have always had, as we've said and we've always pushed for, a world class Board.
Our Directors have Board experience, excellent judgment and their fiduciary response, they take extremely seriously. Simply put, this Board is extremely well suited to guiding this company into the next phase of growth and success. And I thank the Board for their loyalty and their commitment and their leadership to this company. Okay. Now we'll proceed to the formal business of our Annual Meeting, the purpose of which is, 1, to elect 12 directors listed in the proxy statement to approve the performance goals under the company's 2,002 stock incentive plan as amended and restated, to vote on a proposal to approve on an advisory basis the executive compensation program for the company's named executive officers to ratify the appointment of Ernst and Young LLP as our independent registered public accounting firm for 2015 to vote on a shareholder proposal concerning the adoption of a policy regarding an independent Board Chairman and to take up, obviously, any other matter that may properly come before this meeting.
By the way, with respect to item 4, Ray Mikovitz, the partner of Ernst and Young that is responsible for our account is here and right over here. And it gives me the opportunity also to say thank you, Ray, for all that you've done to help support our financial condition and our audit capabilities on this part. Now, he's available right now to take any questions, I think, or if anybody has a question, you can wait until the question and answer period a little later on. But I want you to know that Ray is available take any of your questions. Okay.
For those items that we're talking about, the polls are now open. Ballots will be distributed to anyone that once won on that one. If you would just raise your hand if you need a ballot. You obviously don't need to if you've already voted, whether by phone or Internet or okay, good. I would remind you then that we have collected the ballots to date on this one and we will get to those in just a second.
So in detail for our agenda, the first item to be voted upon is the election of 12 directors. The names of the 12 directors nominated for election are Sir Wayne Bischoff, William Green, Charles Haldeman, Rebecca Jacoby, Robert McGraw, Bill Ochoa Brilenburg, Doug Peterson, Sir Michael Raitt, Ed Rust, Kurt Schmoke, Sydney Terrell and Dick Thornburg. The second item to be voted upon is a proposal to approve the performance goals under the company's 2002 STAR CONSENTIVE plan as amended. The 3rd item to be voted upon is the proposal to approve on an advisory basis the executive compensation program for the company's named executive officers the 4th item to be noted upon is the ratification of the selection of Ernst and Young LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting for 2015. And again, the 5th item to be voted upon is the shareholder proposal concerning the adoption of a policy required an independent Board Chairman.
I understand on the latter item that Ms. Katie Vo is prepared to present this proposal. I would like to give Katie Vo an opportunity to make a statement in support of this proposal at this time. If she does, she's a very talented person and this is her first time speaking at an annual meeting. And Katie, where are you?
There you are. The floor is yours, Katie.
Good morning, everybody. I'm here to present proposal of number 5, Independent Board Chairman, sponsored by Kenneth Feiner. Result, shareholders request that the Board of Directors adopt a policy that the Chairman of the Board of Directors shall be an independent director, who is not a current or former employee of the company and whose only non trivial professional, familial and financial connection to the company is CEO is the directorship. Our Board would have discretion to deal with existing agreements in implementing this proposal. Our Board would have discretion to encourage any person who had contract rights that may delay full implementation of its proposal to voluntarily waive such contract rights for the benefit of shareholders.
This policy should allow for policy departure under extraordinary circumstances such as the unexpected resignation of the chair. When our CEO is our Board Chairman, this arrangement can hinder our Board's ability to monitor our CEO's performance. Many companies already have an independent Chairman. An independent Chairman is the prevailing practice in the United Kingdom and many international markets. This proposal topic won 50 plus percent support at 5 major U.
S. Companies in 2013, including 73% support at Netflix. This proposal topic, sponsored by Ray Chevedden won 55% support at Sembra Energy. The policy of a council of institutional investors whose members invest over $3,000,000,000,000 states the Board should be chaired by an independent director, a 20 12 report by GMI ratings, an independent investment research firm titled Because of Combined Chair and CEO, found that companies with an independent share provide investors with 5 year shareholder returns 28% higher than those headed by a combined CEO and Chair. The study also found corporations with a combined Chair CEO are 86% more likely to negatively register as aggressive in their accounting and governance risk model.
Our practice of an insider related chair may result in disadvantages similar to the combined chair, CEO, Board structure. Please vote to protect shareholder value. Independent Board Chairman, Proposal 5. Thank
you. Thank you, Katie. Very well done. And we'll see how you do on that part. Before we go to the Pennant Valley, Scott?
Okay. All right. Again, because no one was doing any ballots here, obviously, we're not going to collect any. We have a preliminary tally of the votes by the inspectors of election based on the information at the start of this meeting on this one. Now what happens is all of this gets certified and we're going to do that by May 4 and there will be a filing on the Internet and the intranet on that part of it and we file with the government a Form 8 ks that has a little on it.
But this is a preliminary total in this point. Number 1, the 12 persons nominated as directors of McGraw Hill Financial have been elected. Congratulations, Board. The performance goals under the company's 2002 stock incentive plan as amended and restated have been approved. The proposal to approve on an advisory basis the executive compensation program for the company's named executive officers has been approved.
And Ray, the ratification of the appointment of Ernst and Young LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for 2015 has been approved. And 5th, the shareholder proposal concerning the policy requiring an independent board chairman has not been approved on that. Again, all of this will be certificated and filed on or before May 4 in the form of an 8 ks filing. At this point, it is my extreme pleasure to turn it over to our CEO, Doug Peterson, who will give us a report on operations and take on any questions that anyone may have, and then I'll be back to close.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. I want to start this morning by welcoming all of our shareholders, our employees, and those that are with you, and to recognize Terry for his incredible accomplishments as he becomes Chairman Emeritus. I'm a great admirer of Terry's, and he was supportive of me as a partner when I joined S and P and also in the transition to become the CEO.
And I'm grateful for all, Terry, everything you've done for McGraw Hill Financial McGraw Hill Companies over these many years. There is no questions that Terry has made incredible contributions to the performance of this company as well as to markets and to trade and to other important topics outside of this company. But Terry has an impressive track record as a leader. Since he became CEO in 1998 until he stepped down from that role, the company's performance outperformed the S and P 500 over 10, 5, 3, and 1 year periods. And under his leadership, the company returned more than $13,000,000,000 to shareholders through dividends and stock repurchases.
Now of course, Terry also transformed the company while growing it. He made very important decisions over the years as the CEO transforming the portfolio and investing in significant businesses that are fast growth, that have attractive margins, and which form the portfolio of McGraw Hill Financial today, Dannon and Poor's rating services, S and P Capital IQ, S and Dow Jones Indices, Platts, JD Power, and our very important investment in CRISIL in India. Not only was Terry a terrific leader of the company, he's also been a great leader in the community. And we know that he's going to be continuing on with his chairmanship of the International Chamber of Commerce, which is an excellent platform for Terry to be involved in important topics such as trade, which is actually a very big debate going on in Washington today, where Terry's been supporting President Obama and the administration to get through TPA and the TPP. TPA, TPP.
There's a lot of Ts and Ps in there, but a lot of different very important trade initiatives that actually are very important for this economy overall. Now as Terry is getting ready to switch his position, he's had a lot of different honors. He received an honorary citation from Mayor de Blasio. And I want to just read a few words from the congressional record, which was entered in on Thursday, April 23rd by Christopher P. Gibson, who represents New York in the House of Representatives.
So Mr. Gibson said, Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor Harold W. McGraw III on his upcoming retirement from the Board of Directors of McGraw Hill Financial, the company that his great grandfather founded in 18/88. And it concludes by Mr.
Speaker, Terry McGraw has distinguished himself through his career as a skilled and savvy businessman, as well as a generous and civic minded philanthropist. I ask my colleagues to support me in congratulating him on his countless achievements during his remarkable career. So I want to turn to a video that we've prepared to honor Terry.
Our strategy has been to create a strong balanced portfolio of leading global information brands capable of producing consistent and sustainable earnings, dividends and total shareholder returns throughout a wide variety of economic cycles and market conditions. Moves to reposition McGraw Hill Companies into McGraw Hill Financial and take the what was the education businesses and publishing businesses that use higher capital and focus on the financial information businesses that are really at a core part of providing essential intelligence to the markets. And because of that bold thinking, we're now very well positioned today for our future. McGraw Hill is an information company. I think it's fair to say the markets couldn't work without McGraw Hill and a few other companies that do, similar kinds of things.
As a matter of fact, McGraw Hill is my 2nd favorite financial information company. Terry believes passionately in free trade as the mover of international commerce, as an ability as its ability to increase the GDP, to create employment, and to create world prosperity. And in these fragile economic times that we live in, nothing is more necessary than to have someone like Terry McGraw at the Vanguard leading the charge in this particular regard.
There were many memorable moments with Terry, but I think the most striking one for me was when I first met him. I was probably not even a week on the job, And then I was in St. Petersburg and we met for breakfast. And I was impressed at his focus, his clear headed way of seeing things and how he was sure that trade is a tool for economic growth, for development. At that moment, I had no doubt in my head that I have a heavyweight ally, a permanent one on the flight on the fight to liberalize trade.
He has rallied around many, many people in the business community because when you think about it, his interest in trade is not too much to do with McGraw Hill's parochial interest. It's just that he
believes it's right. Terry was one of the, leaders of American business who really stepped forward to help us think through a strategy to revive the global support for trade and for America's openness and not only gave us his time, but really his enthusiasm and expertise on that.
When I think of Terry, I think of a first friend. In the business community, especially the CEO community, you don't really easily break through the barriers of the other CEO. He was inquisitive. He was curious. He wanted to know more about the company I ran, but more importantly, more about me.
He was very personal, very interactive, very engaging, but also very insightful.
McGraw Hill has been an important institution and Terry has been a leader who has really embodied, being a great corporate citizen. Philanthropy isn't just about giving money, but it's about giving time, giving energy, and he's been wonderful in terms of helping us with human resources, in kind support, advice, financial support. He's really been a rock for the organization.
Terry, let me join with your many friends, colleagues and family in really recognizing a tremendous run and what you've accomplished for the McGraw Hill organization, for its employees, its shareholders, all of the stakeholders. In a few words, a job well done.
Thank you, Terry. That applause demonstrates how much everybody cares. Thank you so much. So fortunately, we clearly have a very strong foundation for this company and one that we can build on, as you've seen in our financial results the last couple of days. But let me start by introducing our executive management team so you can get to know who they are.
I'm going to ask each of them to stand as I say their names. John Beresford is the Executive Vice President of Human Resources Jack Callahan is the EVP and CFO Lucy Fatou is our EVP and General Counsel Imogen Dillon Hatcher is the President, S P Capital IQ Don Howard is McGraw Hill Financial's Head of Enterprise Risk Management Alex Maturi, CEO, S and P Dow Jones Indices Larry Neal is the President of Platts Finn O'Neill is the President of J. D. Power Niraj Sahai is the President of S&P Rating Services. Paul Sheard is not with us today.
He's traveling. He's out trying to figure out when interest rates are going to be increased. He's our Chief Global Economist and Head of Global Economics and Research. And Ted Smith is our EVP of Corporate Affairs. Thank you very much all of you.
And I do want to recognize one of our members of our senior about retirement of senior executives. And Ted has made an incredible contribution to this company over many years with our new branding, with the formation of McGraw Hill Financial, and he's also been someone that has very well known to the external community. And Ted, we want to thank you for all of your contributions and service. And I'd like to recognize the new EVP of Public Affairs, Courtney Gedalldik. She's made significant contributions to our company over the last couple of years, And she's joining us when she originally joined with a very distinguished career in the federal government, the U.
S. Senate. And so Courtney, would you please stand so we can recognize you? We also had another management change in CRISIL. Rupa Kutta, who had been with us as the CEO for the last 8 years and with the company for the last 15 years has decided to retire.
And she had an excellent track record there, increasing the market cap by 4 times and the revenues by 3 times, and we thank her for her leadership. Fortunately, we've been able to recruit a very capable financial sector leader from the market who has experience with financial firms with international organizations. And I would like to recognize Ashu Suryash, who will be joining beginning of June, CEO of Crystal. So now let me turn to the state of the company. At the beginning of 2014, we laid out a vision for McGraw Hill Financial and we started with a vision and a mission and core values.
As you can see from this mission from our vision, it's to be the leading provider of transparent and independent benchmarks and ratings, analytics, data and research in the global capital, commodity and corporate markets. As you know from that vision, you can see 2 words which I want to call your attention to independent and transparent. Everything we do is about bringing transparency to the global market. We think about markets that are opaque, that are not clear, and we want to bring them light and order. We want to illuminate those markets and bring products and benchmarks and data so that markets can operate more effectively.
And this is a very critical part of our business model. In addition, when we think about independence, we don't buy, sell, trade based on what we do and that's critical for how we do our business. If we look at our mission to promote sustainable growth in the global capital, commodity and corporate markets by providing customers with essential intelligence and superior service, This gives it a focal point for customers, for service, and for innovation. I'm pleased to report that we're making excellent progress on this foundation for the entire company. And in 2014, we used this platform to grow the business.
We grew revenues by 7% to $5,000,000,000 Our adjusted earnings per share from continuing operations increased 20%. Our adjusted operating margins expanded approximately 300 basis points to 36%, and we generated over $1,000,000,000 of free cash flow. In addition, last year, we completed the sale of McGraw Hill Construction for $320,000,000 of cash. And thanks to those results and our keen focus on growth and performance, we've been also delivering superior shareholder value. Last year, our total shareholder return of 15.3% eclipsed the S and P 500 return of 13.5%.
In fact, as I said earlier, thanks to Terry and our leadership, we've also been outperforming the S and P 500 benchmark for 10, 5, and 3 years. And our commitment to maximizing shareholder value and returning capital continues, as in January, the Board increased the regular quarterly cash dividend to $0.33 from $0.30 And in addition, earlier this year we were very pleased to resolve significant legal and regulatory matters. Our strong financial performance has continued in 2015 in this Q1. Yesterday, we announced our Q1 results showing all of the company's businesses delivering mid single digit revenue growth despite the headwinds of a strong U. S.
Dollar. This growth coupled with excellent progress with our ongoing productivity led to a significant improvement in the bottom line with adjusted diluted EPS improving 25%. And as you can see, part of that productivity led to a 3 80 basis points improvement in our operating margin. This sets us up very well for the rest of the year as we continue to drive forward with growth and performance. As we look at how we're positioned in the global markets, we look at very important trends and patterns in secular growth across the globe to position where we want to invest for the future, whether that's investment in our own businesses through organic growth or over time in acquisitions, and how we can best serve the needs of all of our constituencies.
Since 2007, according to research by McKinsey, corporate bonds and non bank lending has accounted for nearly all the new corporate credit, while corporate bank lending has shrunk. The value of corporate bonds outstanding globally grew by $4,300,000,000,000 between 2,007 and now, compared to only $1,200,000,000,000 between 2,000,000 and 2,007. We see an example of the interest in growth in capital markets when the new Eunkar government in Europe is putting a specific focus on a capital markets union for the EU, something that we believe we should be part of helping form as well as it will be beneficial for our business over the long run. At S and P Dow Jones Indices, we've been benefiting from the growing interest effectiveness of ETFs and asset management asset approach to index based investing. A testament to this strength is seen in the rapid growth of AUMs in ETFs.
In the U. S, the ETF market eclipsed $2,000,000,000,000 in 2014. That's up roughly 18% year on year. And E and Y predicts that annual growth rates for ETF assets will be between 15% 30% around the globe over the coming years. So in the ETF market and the index based market, it is going to be a bigger part of a growing pie over time and we're very pleased that we have such a significant business that has an excellent brand in that area.
To sum up, 2014 was a year of strong performance, which has continued into 2015. We're making very good progress on our growth and performance plan, and we're well positioned to benefit from global secular trends. Our progress and success would not be possible if not for our dedicated and talented employees around the globe, our dedicated and talented Board of Directors. And I want to thank all of the people involved with the company for their professionalism and for the work that they do to make this company greater all the time. Finally, as we've started this off, I want to thank Terry and thank him again.
And we're going to open it up now and see if anybody in the audience has any questions
Good morning. Good morning.
Philip Berman, Portfolio Manager and Shareholder. Some comments and questions together. I stated in 2,009 my view at this meeting that the stock market and MHT had bottomed along with the economy. And ever since then, we have had year over year improvement in current and predecessor stock price earnings, which in essence paved the way for the very successful restructuring of MHP that is now complete. It is the MHFI crown jewel part of the company now unleashed that will power the future earnings and profits and the stock price to even higher future triple digit highs.
The standalone MHFI has now shown in a very short period of time that the purest play in quantitative analytic financial services has produced nothing less than pure high quality earnings without footnotes. Although most of the company's branded products do not carry the McGraw Hill name, the company has an implicit unequivocal obligation to maintain the company's predecessor name as that is where it all began back when Terry McGraw's father executed a vision and founded and grew this grand company into the highly consistent 3 profitable company that it now is. Now some questions. How is the new current wave of spin offs IPOs, etcetera, affecting the cuts up business? And are there any plans to expand or enhance the CUS IP nomenclature system to increase profits?
First of all, thank you for your comments. We agree and for us to ensure that we grow in a way that's responsible, it's valuable for us to think about all of the different constituencies that we work with, whether it's our customers, our shareholders, our employees, the community. So thank you for your comments. Related to the spin offs and IPOs, we have been investing in the CUSIP business. It's a business that's part of the segment of S and P Capital IQ.
We're pleased that we have an excellent long term relationship with the ABA and it's an area where there are a lot of opportunities for us to expand different types of coverage of CUSIP and we're pleased it's part of our product portfolio. Okay.
A lot of companies that have restructured and wanted to maintain control of their company and remain independent in order to build up the long term assets and also to accommodate any acquisitions that present themselves in the future have established Class A and Class B stock. Has the company given that any consideration?
No.
Thank you.
Any further questions? Seeing that there are no further questions, I'm going to hand the floor back to Terry McGraw. Thank you very much.
Okay. Before we adjourn, Doug, thank you for the comments that you've made and all of that. They mean a lot to me. And congratulations to you and the entire management team on the Q1, an excellent start, above expectation and certainly sets the tone for more to come. It is always to be a part of anything that's great, a great company like this or whatever, it's an honor and a privilege to be able to serve and to represent that kind of company.
And as we were saying last night, it's all because of you. It's all because of the many employees and managers that work so hard and care so much about making impacts in markets and doing things for our customers. And if we stay focused to those kinds of things, that's exactly where we are. This company is 127 years old. And I believe because of the values and the ethical principle that our past generations have helped blessed us with constructing and the way to think and the way to behave and the way to go forward on that one.
So, from my standpoint, I thank the Board of Directors, past and present, for the privilege both with the Board and with Minimid and both with the Board, with management and with the employees. So with that, I ask if there is a motion for adjournment. That's Jack Callahan, our CFO. And well done, Jack. You practiced hard on that one.
Is there a second? The Head of Communications to pull that one off, there we go. All in favor? Aye. Aye.
Ladies and gentlemen, onward and upward. God bless you
all.
That concludes this morning's call. On behalf of McGraw Hill Financial, we thank you for participating and wish you a good day.