PITTSBURGH (AP) – Shareholders overwhelmingly approved Bank of New York Co.’s planned $16.5 billion takeover of Mellon Financial Corp., according to official voting results released by the two companies Monday.

The all-stock deal, which was announced in December, would create the world’s largest securities-servicing company and one of its biggest asset managers. The transaction is expected to be completed between July and September.

Mellon and Bank of New York held separate shareholder meetings in Pittsburgh and New York last month to vote on the proposed transaction.

More than 98 percent of the votes cast by shareholders of each company favored the transaction. A total of about 326 million votes were cast by Mellon investors and about 615 million by holders of Bank of New York stock.

Robert P. Kelly, Mellon’s president, chairman and chief executive, has been tapped to become the new company’s chief executive. He joined Mellon in February last year and received 2006 compensation that Mellon valued at $20.37 million, according to a proxy statement.

Bank of New York Chairman and Chief Executive Thomas A. Renyi will serve as executive chairman for 18 months after the deal closes, overseeing integration of the two firms.

The deal has been approved by each company’s board of directors, but is still awaiting approval by regulators.

The new company would be the world’s leading asset servicer with $16.6 trillion in assets under custody. It also would rank among the top 10 global asset managers with more than $1.1 trillion in assets under management.

The company would be based in New York and called Bank of New York Mellon Corp., though overlapping operations – including asset management, wealth management and asset servicing – would be known as BNY Mellon.

The deal signals the departure of Mellon’s headquarters from Pittsburgh, where it has been based for 138 years. But the combined company will maintain some operations here.

At the deal’s announcement on Dec. 4, the companies said they would eliminate roughly 3,900 jobs, or nearly 10 percent of their combined work force of about 40,000.

The cuts were expected to occur over three years after the deal closes and would be made through normal attrition when possible.

The deal would reduce costs by about $700 million annually and incur restructuring charges of about $1.3 billion, the companies said.