Morgan Stanley has turned up the heat in the battle for the broking business of the UK's top companies by hiring 13 bankers in four weeks.

Morgan Stanley, which last month began its foray into UK corporate broking by poaching five brokers from Merrill Lynch, is close to meeting its immediate aim of having a team of 15 with which to build a corporate broking base of 10 FTSE clients. Alliance & Leicester, the UK bank, is its only current FTSE 100 client.