Thomson Reuters hires LIBOR director

John Ewan was a director of the British Bankers’ Association where he was responsible for management of the benchmark London Inter Bank Offered Rate setting process and its annual review of those banks that contribute to it. Dubbed “Mr Libor”, he became managing director of BBA LIBOR two years ago after three years as a BBA director. His new job at Thomson Reuters is head of business development for its fixing and benchmark business. 

LIBOR has been in the news since it emerged recently that US and British regulators had fined Barclays Bank $456 million for fixing its LIBOR submissions between 2005 and 2008. Ewan was in charge of the BBA’s LIBOR process at that time. Senior Barclays officials have left the bank and regulators have confirmed that other banks are under investigation.

LIBOR is used as a benchmark for loans and derivatives. It is compiled by the BBA in conjunction with Thomson Reuters, which surveys a panel of large banks every morning and asks how much it would cost them to borrow from each other for 15 different periods, from overnight to one year, in currencies including dollars, euros, yen and Swiss francs. After a set number of quotes are excluded, Thomson Reuters calculates the average industry-wide benchmark based on those submissions. Thomson Reuters and other data vendors then publish the rate to the market. ■