NYSE to Buy Scandal-Plagued Libor

Hey buddy, wanna buy a disgraced financial metric? Because the New York Stock Exchange does. It's struck a deal to buy Libor, the benchmark for global short-term interest rates that became synonymous in recent years with complex stories about financial skullduggery thanks to a scandal in which the world's top banks manipulated the rate for their own profit, sources tell the Wall Street Journal. The terms of the sale weren't disclosed.

And yes, this means that the "London interbank offered rate," a longstanding symbol of that city's economic ascendency, will be owned by a New York company. But the plan calls for NYSE Euronext to set up an independent UK subsidiary to run Libor, which will still be regulated by the UK's Financial Conduct Authority. (More Libor stories.)