Tuesday 26 July 2016 5:06 pm

Deutsche Boerse wins shareholder approval for London Stock Exchange merger

Deutsche Boerse has won the necessary level of shareholder support for its merger with the London Stock Exchange.

The approval rate has now exceeded the 60 per cent set by the German stock exchange. As of 5pm German time on Tuesday, 60.35 per cent of shares had been counted as tendered.

Shareholders of the London Stock Exchange approved the merger earlier this month. Some 99.89 per cent of those who voted approved the deal, the company announced.

Mark Field, Conservative MP for the Cities of London and Westminster, said today: "I welcome the clear decision of the shareholders. The merger creates a strong and powerful player in a very competitive global market, it strengthens Canada in challenging times, and it is a clear signal for the ongoing cooperation with our European friends and partners."

The exchanges' attentions will now turn to winning regulatory approval for the merger, which has always been highlighted as a bigger hurdle by analysts.

Politicians in Belgium and Portugal have this month written to Brussels regulators speaking out against the deal.

And, at the end of June, the head of Germany’s financial market regulator Bafin said the companies’ merged headquarters could not be based in London after the UK’s Brexit vote.

“Without doubt… it is hard to imagine that the most important exchange venue in the Eurozone would be steered from a headquarters outside the EU,” Felix Hufeld told reporters at a conference attended by Reuters. “There certainly has to be an adjustment here.”

And at the beginning of this month, after Hufeld’s intervention, sources close to the deal told CityAM that London was at risk of losing, or sharing, the joint HQ under a full Brexit scenario.

Previously a condition of the deal, the sources said that executives of both companies had agreed that the company will need an EU base.

CityAM understands this assurance has also been given to politicians in Germany.