NYSE Euronext chief Duncan Niederauer said his company and its merger partner, Germany's Deutsche Börse, have many options to improve their deal to help it overcome a gap between its value and a rival bid led by Nasdaq OMX.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal that previewed a shareholder meeting set for Thursday, Niederauer said that there were "a lot of things that can be done to take care of shareholders" and that the parent of the New York Stock Exchange would be "pretty pragmatic" to get shareholder approval for the deal.