Bookrunner Morgan Stanley is understood to have offloaded the majority of UniCredit's and Intesa SanPaolo's combined 11.5% stake in the London Stock Exchange Group to a number of long-only US and European fund managers, increasing the liquidity in the exchange’s own stock.

The US bank helped the two Italian banks sell their two stakes in the UK exchange operator yesterday after the close of trading and early this morning, after they both put their shares up for sale in an accelerated bookbuild.