The pace at which German, French and Italian companies are unwinding cross-shareholdings will increase as a result of changes to the indices provided by Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) indices, fund managers say.

MSCI's indices reflect the number of shares in a company that are freely available to be bought on the market. As a result of the new constituents announced Saturday, German, French and Italian companies, many of whose shares are tied up in cross-shareholdings, will see their weightings fall relative to UK and other companies. Lower weightings could result in share price falls as investors that follow the index sell their shares in these companies.