Graham Holdings

Graham Holdings Company (formerly The Washington Post Company) is a diversified American conglomerate holding company. Headquartered in Arlington County, Virginia, and incorporated in Delaware,[2] it was formerly the owner of The Washington Post newspaper and Newsweek magazine.

Graham Holdings Company
FormerlyThe Washington Post Company (1947–2013)
TypePublic
Class A Common Stock: unlisted
Class B Common Stock: NYSE: GHC
S&P 400 Component
ISINUS3846371041 
IndustryConglomerate
FoundedAugust 4, 1947 (1947-08-04) (as The Washington Post Company)
Washington, D.C., U.S.
Headquarters
Arlington County, Virginia
,
U.S.
Key people
Donald E. Graham
(Chairman)
Tim O'Shaughnessy
(President and CEO)
ProductsMagazines
Educational Services
Television
Cable television
Electronic media
Revenue US$2.58 billion (2015)[1]
US$-80 million (2015)[1]
US$-101 million (2015)[1]
Number of employees
11,500 (2015)[1]
Websitewww.ghco.com

Its current holdings include the digital marketing company SocialCode, the online magazine Slate, Graham Media Group (formerly Post-Newsweek Stations), a group of seven television stations, higher education company Kaplan, and the now closed Trove (formerly WaPo Labs)—the developers of a news reader app. Graham Holdings Company also owned cable television and internet service provider Cable One until it was spun off in 2015.

Corporate history

The history of Graham Holdings Company dates back to 1877, when the Post was first published. The Washington Post Company was incorporated in the District of Columbia in 1889,[3] and remained a District of Columbia corporation until it changed its place of incorporation to Delaware in 2003.[4] It is a public company and its Class B common stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol GHC; it went public in 1971.

Descendants of the late Eugene Meyer (including Chairman Donald E. Graham, his sister Lally Weymouth, and the beneficiaries of various family trusts) collectively control the company through their ownership of the unlisted Class A common stock that selects 70% of the company's board of directors. As of 2014, it forms more than 90% of the family's assets.[5] Prior to 2014, Berkshire Hathaway was a substantial holder of the public Class B common stock that selects 30% of the company's board of directors, but exchanged most of that stock for WPLG-TV, one of Graham Holdings' television stations, and other assets, in 2014.[5]

Since 1950, the company had been based in the Washington Post building in Washington, D.C., which was sold off separately in 2014. Its new headquarters are at 1300 North 17th Street in Arlington, Virginia, with the choice of state motivated (according to Don Graham) by the proximity to Congress and the fact that two of the holding's activity areas, education and health care, are subject to federal regulation.[5]

On August 5, 2013 it was announced that the Washington Post Company would sell the flagship newspaper for $250 million to Jeff Bezos, founder and chief executive of Amazon.com. The Washington Post Company agreed to adopt a new corporate name once the sale was finalized. It adopted Graham Holdings Company as the new name effective November 29, 2013.[6] Amazon.com was not involved in the sale.[7] Nash Holdings LLC, a company owned by Bezos, closed the purchase of the newspaper and affiliated publications on October 1, 2013.[8][9] Graham Holdings Company retained ownership of WaPo Labs, its technology innovation group,[10] since rebranded as Trove.

In 2014, Tim O'Shaughnessy joined GHC as president, the founder of LivingSocial and a son-in-law of CEO Don Graham.[5] Tim O'Shaughnessy became CEO in November 2015.

In March 2018, following several years of enrollment decline, Graham sold Kaplan University to the Purdue University system, and it was rebranded Purdue University Global.[11]

Holdings

Education

The Education area yielded 61% of GHC's revenue in 2014.[5] Kaplan focuses on three areas: higher education, professional training, and test preparation. Headquartered in New York City, Kaplan had $2.2 billion in revenue in 2013.[12]

StudentAdvisor.com is the latest education resource launched by Graham Holdings Company. StudentAdvisor.com is an education research (reviews written by students, alumni, and parents) and comparison destination (tools to download and compare multiple colleges) for students, parents, and lifetime learners.

In January 2016, Graham Holdings launched CyberVista, a cybersecurity training and education company.[13]

Following several years of significant enrollment decline, Graham sold Kaplan University to the Purdue University system for one dollar in March 2018, which was rebranded as Purdue University Global. In exchange, Purdue agreed to employ Kaplan, Inc. as the exclusive provider of nonacademic functions,[14] and Kaplan, Inc. agreed to assume responsibility for liabilities resulting before the transaction. According to the contract terms, Kaplan receives 12.5 percent of the university's revenue, as long as funds are available after all operating expenses and guaranteed payments to Purdue have been covered. Purdue University Global reported an $18 million loss in 2018, and a $43 million loss in 2019.[15] In February 2020, GHC reported that Purdue University Global owed Kaplan Higher Education $68.4 million for services and deferred fees and $18.6 million for an advance from the Kaplan University transaction.[16] Despite spending a reported $132 million in marketing, more than $4,400 per enrolled student,[17] and four times their competitor SNHU,[18] enrollments at Global have remained virtually flat.

Broadcasting
Main article: Graham Media Group

Through its Graham Media Group subsidiary (formerly Post-Newsweek Stations),[19] Graham Holdings owns a group of seven television stations. Led by chief executive officer Emily L. Barr, the company is now based in Chicago, after being co-located for several years with its local NBC affiliate WDIV-TV in Detroit.[20]

Stations are arranged in alphabetical order by state and city of license.

City of license / market Station Channel
TV (RF)		 Owned since Primary affiliation
Jacksonville WJXT 4 (42) 1953 Independent
WCWJ 17 (34) 2017 The CW
Orlando - Daytona Beach - Melbourne WKMG-TV 6 (26) 1997 CBS
Detroit WDIV 4 (45) 1978 NBC
Houston KPRC-TV 2 (35) 1994 NBC
San Antonio KSAT-TV 12 (12) 1994 ABC
Roanoke WSLS-TV 10 (30) 2017 NBC

Cable

Cable ONE is an Internet and cable television provider based in the Phoenix, Arizona, area serving over 730,000 customers in 19 states.

In November 2014, Graham Holdings said it would spin off Cable ONE as a separate, publicly traded company in 2015.[21] The spin-off was completed on July 1, 2015.[22]

Interactive

Graham Holdings Company also owns three firms active in various capacities on the World Wide Web. These include The Slate Group, which publishes Slate, Slate V, and ForeignPolicy.com.[23] The Root, an online magazine focusing on African American culture, used to be held by The Slate Group until Graham Holdings sold it to Univision Communications in 2015.[24] Graham Holdings Company also owns SocialCode, an advertising agency specializing in social media/ID-based marketing, and Panoply, a podcasting network.

In November 2014, Graham Holdings Company acquired Social News Desk through its subsidiary, Graham Media Group.[25] Led by Founder and President Kim Wilson, Social News Desk is an Atlanta-based, social-media management platform specializing in newsrooms.[26][27]

Health care

In October 2012, the firm purchased Celtic Healthcare Inc. for an undisclosed sum. Celtic Healthcare, based in Pennsylvania, provides home health care in western, central, and northeastern Pennsylvania as well as Montgomery and Baltimore County, Maryland. It also provides home hospice services in the same areas, as well as owns a 10-bed inpatient hospice in Dunmore, Pennsylvania.[28] In 2014, it had around 558 full-time and 45 part-time employees.[5]

In 2014, Graham Holdings bought a majority stake in Troy, Michigan-based Residential Healthcare Group, the parent company of Residential Home Health and Residential Hospice, which provides at-home and on-site health care and hospice services in Michigan and Illinois.[29]

Energy production

In July 2013, Graham Holdings purchased Forney Corp. for an undisclosed sum. The company, which is based in Addison, Texas, manufactures equipment that monitors and controls the combustion of coal, natural gas, and other materials. This equipment is sold to electric utilities for use in power generation plants.[30]

Manufacturing

In June 2014, Graham Holdings acquired Joyce/Dayton Corp., a Dayton, Ohio-based manufacturer of screw jacks and other linear-motion systems.[31]

In November 2015, Graham Holdings acquired Group Dekko, a Garrett, Indiana-based electrical manufacturer.[32]

In April 2017, Graham Holdings acquired Hoover Treated Wood Products, a Thompson, Georgia-based manufacturer of fire retardant wood and other wood products.

In May 2020, Graham Holdings announced that it had acquired Framebridge. [33]

Restaurants

In July 2019, Graham Holdings acquired Clyde's Restaurant Group, the owner and operator of several restaurants in the Washington metropolitan area, including Old Ebbitt Grill.[34]

Automotive

In January 2019, Graham Holdings acquired 90% of two automobile dealerships from Sonic Automotive. [35]

See also

References
  1. "2015 Annual Report". Graham Holdings Company.
  2. "EDGAR Search Results". www.sec.gov. Retrieved 2020-05-29.
  3. District of Columbia Corporation records show the original Washington Post Company was registered as a domestic corporation in 1889 Archived 2009-06-20 at the Wayback Machine
  4. District of Columbia Corporation records show the original D.C.-based corporation's charter was revoked in 2003 and replaced by a Delaware-based foreign corporation Archived 2009-06-20 at the Wayback Machine.
  5. Graham Holdings: 2014 Annual Report (available on GHCO.com)
  6. Wilgoren, Debbi. "Washington Post Co. Renamed Graham Holdings Company to Mark Sale of Newspaper." Washington Post. November 18, 2013. Accessed 2013-11-18.
  7. Farhi, Paul (August 6, 2013). "Washington Post to be sold to Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon". Washington Post. Retrieved 6 August 2013.
  8. Fahri, Paul (October 1, 2013). "The Washington Post Closes Sale to Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos". The Washington Post. Washington, D.C. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved October 1, 2013. Bezos’s $250 million purchase was completed as expected with the signing of sale documents. The signing transfers the newspaper and other assets from The Washington Post Co. to Nash Holdings, Bezos’s private investment company.
  9. Clabaugh, Jeff (October 1, 2013). "Jeff Bezos Completes Washington Post Acquisition". Washington Business Journal. American City Business Journals. Retrieved October 1, 2013. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is now officially the head of a newspaper, completing his $250 million acquisition of the Washington Post’s publishing business Tuesday afternoon.
  10. "What is WaPo Labs?" – via www.washingtonpost.com.
  11. "Bangert: Year of controversy later, online Purdue Global goes live". Journal & Courier. Retrieved 2020-02-06.
  12. "Investor Overview". Graham Holdings Company.
  13. "New Company, CyberVista, Launches to Tackle Cybersecurity Training for Business Leaders and Practitioners" Business Wire. January 6, 2016. Accessed 2016-06-19.
  14. "Accreditor backs Purdue University Global as more for-profits seek to convert or sell". www.insidehighered.com. Retrieved 2020-02-06.
  15. Hill, Phil (2020-01-07). "Postscript on Purdue University Global Post". PhilOnEdTech. Retrieved 2020-02-06.
  16. "10K Graham Holdings Company". sec.gov. US Securities and Exchange Commission. Retrieved 27 February 2020.
  17. Hill, Phil (2020-01-30). "Purdue Global Budget: More than $132m spent on marketing last year". PhilOnEdTech. Retrieved 2020-03-06.
  18. Hill, Phil (2020-01-30). "Purdue Global Budget: More than $132m spent on marketing last year". PhilOnEdTech. Retrieved 2020-03-06.
  19. "Washington Post's former TV arm changes name to Graham Media Group". Chicago Tribune. 28 July 2014. Retrieved 28 July 2014.
  20. "Emily Barr leaves ABC 7 on top — but doesn't go far". Time Out Chicago. 8 May 2012. Retrieved 28 January 2013.
  21. Clabaugh, Jeff (November 13, 2014). "Graham Holdings to spin off cable business". Washington Business Journal. Retrieved November 13, 2014.
  22. "Graham Holdings Completes Spin-off of Cable ONE". Business Wire. Retrieved 2 August 2015.
  23. "The Washington Post Company Announces The Slate Group." Washington Post. June 4, 2008.
  24. Bond, Shannon (2015-05-21). "Univision buys African-American news site The Root". Financial Times. ISSN 0307-1766. Retrieved 2015-05-24.
  25. "Graham Media Group Buys Social Media Startup". www.adweek.com. Retrieved 2018-07-23.
  26. "Kim Wilson". Graham Media. Retrieved 2018-07-23.
  27. "Our Companies". Graham Media. Retrieved 2018-07-23.
  28. Clabaugh, Jeff. "Washington Post Enters Hospice Business With Purchase of Celtic Healthcare." Washington Business Journal. October 1, 2012. Accessed 2013-11-18.
  29. Harrison, J.D. "Graham Holdings wades deeper into residential health care business." Washington Post. July 3, 2014. Accessed 2015-10-17.
  30. Clabaugh, Jeff. "Washington Post Buys Utility Products Company." Washington Business Journal. July 18, 2013. Accessed 2013-11-18.
  31. "Graham Holdings acquires Joyce/Dayton Corp." Today's Energy Solutions. June 2, 2014. Archived March 4, 2016, at the Wayback Machine Accessed 2015-10-17.
  32. "Graham Holdings Acquires Group Dekko." Business Wire. November 13, 2015. Accessed 2016-06-19.
  33. "Graham Holdings Acquires Framebridge." Citybizlist. May 15, 2020. Accessed 2020-16-05.
  34. Maynard, Michelle (August 1, 2019). "From News To Nightcaps: Washington's Graham Family Buys The Clyde's Group". Forbes.
  35. "Graham Holdings Company Acquires Two Automotive Dealerships." Business Wire. January 31, 2019. Accessed 2020-02-18.
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