Italy watchdog checks BlackRock statements on UniCredit stake-source

MILAN Jan 11 (Reuters) - Italian market watchdog Consob is looking into two contradictory statements made by BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, over its stake in UniCredit, a source close to Consob told Reuters on Wednesday.

BlackRock said in a statement on Wednesday that its aggregated holding in the Italian bank was unchanged and stood at 3.09 percent, retracting an earlier statement which said it had cut its stake to 1.71 percent just days before the launch of UniCredit's 7.5 billion euro rights issue.

"We are making checks on this," the source said. "BlackRock says they made a mistake, but there is a capital increase underway, it's a systemically important financial institution and a European blue-chip -- so we have to look into this," the source added.

(Reporting By Paola Arosio)