Aaaah, summer courtships.

Financial data giants Bloomberg and Markit are separately trying to buy the fixed income index business of Barclays, reports the Wall Street Journal.

The Journal article cites people familiar with the subject, who say that separate bids from the two data firms are nearing $1 billion.

Barlcays, according to the Journal, is significant in the fixed income index space because of the popularity of its flagship U.S. Aggregate bond index.

Indexes are important for bond folk because of the decentralized of the debt markets, according to the Journal.

This wooing represents a big step for Markit, which raised $1.5 billion this June during its IPO.

The Barclays bidding represents the second big play for a major indexer.

After several months of heated bidding from at least six rivals, Russell Investments was bought by the London Stock Exchange. The plum asset in this purchase was Russell's indexing business, leading to widespread talk that the LSE would look to spin off Russell's other operations. 

Edited by: Tommy Fernandez


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