Standard & Poor’s, a ratings subsidiary of the US-based McGraw Hill, is betting big on web-based information services on companies and the business of managing portfolios to grow the share of revenues from India.

Harold McGraw Hill III, chairman, president and CEO of The McGraw Hill Companies, said, “At present under 5 per cent of the global revenues come from India and it has the potential to grow further.”

Apart from financial services, S&P is looking at the education sector for growth, McGraw Hill said on the sidelines of a conference to mark the 10,000th SME rating issued by CRISIL, S&P ratings’ subsidiary in India.

McGraw Hill already has presence in the education sector in India through its subsidiary McGraw Hill Education India. In addition to CRISIL, S&P’s presence in the financial services market in India is through index management, Capital IQ and investment vehicle business. Capital IQ provides web-based information services that combine information on companies to help analyse company fundamentals, build financial models, screen for investment ideas and execute other financial research tasks.

Growth in CRISIL India’s small and medium enterprises (SME) ratings business is expected to be robust next year. According to Rupa Kudva, managing director and CEO of CRISIL, the rating agency will rate around 8,000 new SMEs in 2010-11. “We have rated 10,000 SMEs so far since 2005 when we started this vertical and we expect to rate another 8,000 such entities in coming financial year,” Kudva said.

According to Kudva, only 40 per cent of the SMEs come back for re-rating. “The government subsidy on SME rating of Rs 25,000-Rs 40,000 is not available for second round of rating and hence many companies shy away from coming back,” Kudva said in the conference. In addition to the subsidiary, CRISIL charges around Rs 7,500-Rs 13,000 from companies for the first-time rating.