Standard & Poor's, the international credit rating agency, has cut the credit rating of J Sainsbury, just hours after the UK supermarket group sold US assets for $2.48bn (€2bn) and announced it would return £680m to shareholders.

S&P lowered its rating from A- to BBB , just three notches above sub-investment grade or junk status. S&P has affirmed Sainsburys' A-2 short-term ratings. Last October, S&P estimated the group's lease- and pension-adjusted net debt at £3.45bn (€5.15bn). Sainsbury said the sale brought the group's net debt to £1.5bn.