(Adds comments from Bloomberg, details)
LONDON, Dec 16 (Reuters) - Barclays Plc BARC.L has sold
its benchmark indices and risk analytics business, which
includes the widely used Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond Index, to
financial information provider Bloomberg for about 520 million
pounds ($781 million).
Barclays said on Wednesday the sale of its Risk Analytics
and Index Solutions business will result in a pretax gain of
about 480 million pounds and lift its common equity capital
ratio by about 10 basis points when the deal completes, expected
by mid-2016.
The bank said it was further evidence of its reduction of
activities that it does not consider strategically important.
Barclays and Bloomberg said they would maintain a
co-branding arrangement on the benchmark indices for an initial
term of five years.
"As financial markets continue to evolve, our clients need
and expect the index business to evolve too," said Michael
Bloomberg, the company's founder.
Barclays put its index business up for sale in 2014 after
designating it as 'non-core', but an auction ran into difficulty
after would-be buyers realised some bond pricing data would not
be part of the package, people familiar with the situation told
Reuters last year. That was partly because some of the data were
owned by Bloomberg, the sources said.
Barclays obtained some of its index business as part of its
Lehman Brothers acquisition in 2008.
It includes fixed income, inflation-linked, and swaps
indices, such as its Aggregate, High-Yield, Emerging Markets,
Municipal and Universal Index families.
Thomson Reuters competes with Bloomberg as a financial news
and information provider.
($1 = 0.6657 pounds)