The boss of UniCredit, the largest Italian bank which will become a 5% shareholder in the London Stock Exchange if the exchange's proposed merger with Borsa Italiana goes ahead, has said he would back a merger between the LSE and Deutsche Börse.

Alessandro Profumo, the chief executive of Unicredit and a member of the supervisory board at the German exchange, would support that combination, reports Corriere della Sera, the Italian newspaper which did not cite its source.