Defying fervent opposition and reports of other bids trying to dwarf the London Stock Exchange’s $3.7 billion bid for the TSX, Thomas A. Kloet, chief executive officer, TMX Group Inc., assures it’s a real deal.

Speaking at the Bloomberg Canada Economic Summit, in Toronto, Kloet was quite confident that the merger will go through.

“We believe that it’s the right deal for the Canadian capital markets and for our institutions or investors,” he said. “For the community as a whole, I think it’s the best deal they can [expect] and for us it’s going to help accelerate the realization of our business plan.”

The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) is currently scrutinizing various policy issues associated with the transaction. This scrutiny doesn’t bother Kloet.

“We respect the fact that we need to go through a process,” he said. “We knew that going in. The process continues to unfold as we would’ve expected and we expect to come out of that with a positive outcome.”

Kloet’s comments at the summit serve to dispel speculation among traders, who profit from mergers and acquisitions, that a higher offer will trump the London Stock Exchange Group Plc (LSE)’s deal for Toronto- based TMX Group Inc.

The proposed merger—which is technically a takeover of the TMX Group by the LSE group—has met with opposition from those who worry it could undermine Canadian oversight and leave Canada’s biggest stock exchange dominated by foreign interests.

A group of Canadian banks has been reported to be in talks with the nation’s pension funds on alternatives to LSE’s bid to keep the Toronto Stock Exchange under local ownership. This feeds directly into speculations about arbitragers betting that a competing bid will emerge once LSE gains regulatory approval.

“This is a transaction everybody has an opinion on,” said Kloet. “We are one of those kinds of companies that everybody on the street, whether it’s a taxi driver or investors, has an opinion on. Some people analyze on the basis of how it impacts their business plan.”

Based on the hearing they have had, Kloet feels confident that the merger deal will get the nod from the powers that be.

LSE-TMX deal is part of more than $30 billion in takeover offers for exchanges in less than six months, as bourses try to cut costs and generate more revenue from trading in stocks, options and futures.

Should the merger gets the final go-ahead, it would create a $6.8 billion exchange, leapfrogging New York-based Nasdaq OMX Group Inc., ASX Ltd. of Sydney and Singapore Exchange Ltd. among the world’s biggest trading venues.