London, 26 March - Standard & Poor's today assigned its double-'A' minus long term and 'A-1'-plus short term credit ratings to Reuters Group PLC.

Following the capital reorganisation completed last month in which £1.5 billion of surplus capital was returned to shareholders, Reuters took on net debt for the first time since becoming a public company. As part of the management of this debt and in order to reduce funding costs, Reuters has the flexibility to utilise the public debt markets and wishes to be able to do so on the best possible terms. This process is facilitated by obtaining credit ratings such as those assigned by Standard & Poor's.

Reuters currently plans to launch a Euro-commercial paper programme in the near future which should provide cheaper funding than is currently available under its existing bank facilities. These facilities will be used as back-up for the programme.

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