Barclays investors seal BGI deal

By Steve Slater

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.