Barclays investors seal BGI deal

A protester hands out leaflets outside the venue of Barclay's shareholder meeting, in the City of London August 6, 2009. Workers from Barclays protested outside the meeting as part of their dispute regarding pensions.

LONDON (Reuters) - Barclays shareholders overwhelmingly approved the bank's sale of asset manager Barclays Global Investors to BlackRock for about $14 billion on Thursday, but staff staged a protest against pension changes.

Barclays (BARC.L) chairman Marcus Agius told shareholders the bank was in the final days of consultation about controversial changes to its pension plan for UK staff, and could make changes to alleviate concerns and head off the threat of a strike.

"We are currently reviewing the situation in order to assess what enhancements we could make to the proposals to alleviate those concerns," Agius said.

Staff protesting outside the meeting said the bank had so far failed to address employee concerns about the plan to close final salary pension scheme for British staff in favour of a cheaper alternative, and a main union said it will ballot workers soon on possible strike action.

"If they remain as intransigent as they have been then strike action becomes inevitable," Keith Brookes, national secretary of the Unite trade union, told Reuters.

EASY APPROVAL

The bank won easy approval for its proposed sale of BGI, with 99.9 percent of votes cast in favour of the deal, or 99.4 percent including abstentions.

Barclays agreed in June to sell BGI in a cash and shares deal to remove concerns about its capital strength and give the UK bank a near 20 percent stake in the enlarged BlackRock (BLK.N), which will become the world's largest money manager.

The value of the deal had risen to $14.2 billion based on Wednesday's close, from $13.5 billion two months ago.

Barclays, which has raised funds privately and avoided selling a stake to the UK government, said earlier this week the sale of BGI is on track to complete in the fourth quarter.

The deal will lift its core Tier 1 capital ratio by about 1.5 percentage points to 8.8 percent.

Barclays Chief Executive John Varley said the bank would use the BGI proceeds to keep its capital ratios at high levels, and would not be releasing it across the business or to plug its pension fund hole while financial markets stay tough.

Barclays shares were up 6.7 percent at 358.9 pence by 2:35 p.m., as UK banks led a 3.5 percent surge by the European bank sector .SX7P.

BlackRock will be the biggest single client of Barclays Capital after the deal, Barclays said.

The asset manager, which will be renamed BlackRock Global Investors, will double in size to about $2.8 trillion of assets under management and through iShares will get exposure to exchange-traded funds, one of the fastest growing areas in the industry.

(Additional reporting by Myles Neligan; editing by Simon Jessop and Hans Peters)