Reuters to Spend $800 Million in Online Push

Reuters Group plans to spend $800 million over four years to reinvent itself as an Internet company that will deliver news and financial data to mom-and-pop investors and Wall Street pros alike. The 150-year-old London-based news service hopes to capitalize on the boom in interest about financial data and markets, for the first time targeting amateur investors. In doing so, it hopes to sharply expand its fee-based subscriber service. Company officials said they will provide basic information free to Web visitors but will sell premium services. By midyear, Reuters will create a new Internet site to provide news and market data. It also will offer its Instinet stock-trading service to consumers over the Internet by mid-2000. Reuters’ American depositary receipts jumped $26.13 to close at $125.50 on Nasdaq.