About53% of Deutsche BörseAG shareholders had approved its proposed with bymid-afternoon on July 13, Reuters reported the same day.

Giventhat the deadline for shareholders to register their votes is July 26, thisindicated that the required threshold of 60% would be surpassed, German businessdaily Handelsblatt said.

Basedon their internal rules, many index funds that have a stake in the German stockexchange can vote only once more than 50% of Deutsche Börse shareholders haveagreed to the merger, Reuters added. According to Handelsblatt, this means that the approval rate for the deal islikely to increase quickly now.

LSEhad already approvedthe merger plans in early July, but after U.K. voters opted in a referendum to leave the EU,high-profile German politicians and regulator Bafin cast doubt on the deal,one contentious issuebeing that the holding company of the new entity is supposed to beheadquartered in the U.K.

YetDeutsche Bundesbankboard member Andreas Dombret said July 13 that the deal actually makes moresense now that Britain has voted to leave the EU because it will help build bridgesbetween the bloc and the U.K., Reuters reported.

TheRussian Antimonopoly Service and the U.S. merger control authorities have alsoapproved the merger,although within the EU, there is growing resistance to the deal, the newsagency added. The finance ministers of Portugal and Belgium reportedly appealedto the European Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, to stop themerger, saying it would make it harder to gain access to finance. It would alsothreaten competition among European stock exchanges, Handelsblatt said.