Should Mike Bloomberg Buy the Financial Times?

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg owns 88 percent of financial services giant Bloomberg LP, and there’s no question he could afford to buy the Financial Times. The harder question is whether he should.

On the surface, the deal is attractive. The FT is a prestigious operation with a healthy digital presence that also has a half-stake in The Economist. This top shelf editorial content, along with the FT’s 600,000 subscribers (half of them digital), would be an attractive complement to Bloomberg LP’s existing reporting. But there is a snag. While Bloomberg LP has news operations, it is at heart a data company that sells $20,000 subscriptions to bankers and traders. The company is also famous for an insular corporate culture and for sticking to its knitting. Taking on a free-wheeling global news brand, even one as prestigious as the FT, could prove to be a dangerous distraction.