One of the world’s best-known index providers, Dow Jones Indexes, has been put up for sale by its parent company, News Corp. The group is best known for its publication of what may be the world’s most widely quoted stock index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, created by Charles Dow in 1896.

An article in the Wall Street Journal said that the deal was being shopped around by Goldman Sachs. The Journal said it wasn’t even definite that News Corp. would actually unload the unit, which has been a source of reliable profits. Sources suggest that any final deal would possibly require that the DJIA retain the “Dow Jones” name, due to the power of the brand. MSCI was mentioned as a potential buyer of the unit.

The WSJ article suggested that, based on MSCI’s IPO last year, the index unit could be valued at roughly $700 million, though an item on TheDeal.com quoted a Wells Fargo Securities analyst as putting the value at $600 million-$650 million.

Besides the industrial average, Dow Jones’ lineup of indexes includes the Dow Jones-UBS Commodity Index, the Dow Jones Islamic Market indexes, the Dow Jones STOXX indexes covering Europe and the Dow Jones Select Dividend indexes, among others.