The London Stock Exchange will today unveil plans to scrap its mutual status and turn itself into a shareholder-owned company in response to the technological revolution sweeping through the world's equity markets.

The announcement, which will surprise many of the exchange's 294 member firms, follows similar statements by the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, the screen-based US exchange, last week.

The LSE decision ends more than 200 years of mutual status and is the biggest change at the exchange since the "Big Bang" of 1986, which scrapped minimum commissions for stockbrokers.