Thomson Reuters team goes to Standard & Poor's: report

A man polishes a new logo of Thomson Reuters at the Reuters head offices at Canary Wharf in London April 16, 2008.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A half-dozen members of the Thomson Reuters research department are moving to Standard & Poor's to form a new department to produce market research for hedge funds and other Wall Street players, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The group, headed by former Thomson Research Managing Director Mike Thompson, will have access to proprietary data that S&P uses to assign credit ratings, though Thompson will not be involved in assigning those ratings, the Journal reported.

Thompson did not return a telephone call seeking comment. A Thomson Reuters spokesman declined to comment.

Standard & Poor's is a unit of McGraw-Hill Cos Inc.

(Reporting by Robert MacMillan, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)