Activist investor Elliott Management has built a stake in the London Stock Exchange Group and has been in talks with LSEG to help drive improvement in its performance, encourage a new share buyback and close margin gaps with rivals, according to reports in The Financial Times, Reuters and Bloomberg.

The FT reported that Elliott does not want LSEG to consider a full sale or a spin-off of its stock exchange business.

Shares in LSEG, a giant financial data and analytics group, rose 4%, having fallen by more than 35% in the past 12 months.

Elliott’s exact shareholding is unclear. Elliott and LSEG declined to comment.

LSEG’s 2019 acquisition of Refinitiv brought major financial data and analytics into the group.

“Within the Diversified financial sector, the impact of AI concerns has been felt hardest to date by the Exchange sub-sector as the scope and scale of data and analytics review have come into focus,” Barclays analysts said in a note.

“We think the de-rating is overdone, in particular for LSEG,” they added.