Barclays to sell $6 bn BlackRock stake

LONDON May 21 (Reuters) - Britain's Barclays Plc said it is to sell all of its $6.1 billion stake in U.S. asset manager BlackRock Inc., which it has held for almost three years.

Barclays said the shares would be sold by way of an offering and a related buyback by BlackRock of up to $1 billion of the stock. A prospectus was filed by BlackRock on Monday.

Barclays holds BlackRock common stock and convertible stock that represent 19.6 percent economic interest in the firm. The holding dates from the UK bank's sale of Barclays Global Investors to BlackRock in June 2009.