Standard & Poor's Announces Changes in S&P Global 1200

New York (PROTEXT) - Standard & Poor's will make the followingchanges after the close of trading Friday, December 17, 1999: -- Following the acquisition of Banca Commercial Italiana,Banca

Intesa's new investible weight factor will be revised to0.75

from 0.31 in the S&P Euro and S&P Euro Plus Indices. -- The annual investible weight factor revision for the S&PEuro

and S&P Euro Plus Indices as well as the S&P United Kingdom150

will also take place after the close of trading on the17th. -- Simultaneously, Standard & Poor's will conduct itsquarterly

rebalancing for the S&P Global 1200 Index constituents,

excluding the S&P/TSE 60 after the close of trading on the

17th. The S&P Euro Index covers the Eurobloc countries; the S&P EuroPlus Index covers Continental Europe by including the Euromarkets plus Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. The S&PEuro Plus Index contains 200 constituents, and the S&P EuroIndex, a subset of Euro Plus, contains 159 constituents. TheIndices provide geographic and economic diversity over 10industry sectors. The indices are calculated real-time byReuters. Standard & Poor's, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies,Inc., provides financial, economic and investment information andanalytical services to the global financial community. S&Pcalculates and maintains the S&P Global Index, which includes theS&P Euro and Euro Plus for Continental Europe, the S&P/TSE 60 forCanada, the S&P 500 for the U.S., the S&P/TOPIX for Japan, theS&P Asia Pacific 100, the S&P United Kingdom 150 and the S&PLatin America 40. S&P also publishes the S&P MidCap 400, S&PSmallCap 600, S&P SuperComposite 1500 and S&P REIT Composite forthe U.S. and the S&P/TSE Canadian MidCap and S&P/TSE CanadianSmallCap Indices. Over $750 billion is indexed to S&P indices. Standard & Poor's, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies,provides financial information, analysis, advice, and creditratings globally. Founded in 1888, The McGraw-Hill Companies(NYSE: MHP) is a leading information services provider meetingworldwide needs in education, business, finance, the professionsand government. The corporation employs 16,500 people located inmore than 400 offices in 32 countries. Sales in 1998 were $3.7billion. Company additions to and deletions from an S&P equityindex do not in any way reflect an opinion on the investmentmerits of the company. ots Original Text Service: Standard &Poor's Internet: http://www.newsaktuell.de Contact: CarolLevine, Communications Manager, Index Services of Standard &Poor's, 212-438-3534 Web site: http://www.spglobal.com

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