London  - British bank Barclays announced Tuesday evening that its management had accepted an offer of 13.5 billion dollars for its fund management unit from the US bank BlackRock and would seek shareholder approval of the deal in August.

Barclays said it would convene shareholders in August to approve the deal to sell the Barclays Barclays Global Investors (BGI) unit.

Under the terms, Barclays would also pay a break fee of 175 million dollars to CVC, the private equity firm which previously agreed to buy iShares, which is part of BGI's business.

The envisaged deal would give Barclays a stake of almost 20 per cent in BlackRock.

Barclays group chief executive John Varley said the deal would significantly bloster the company's financial strength and make it "one of the most capitalised banks in the world."  (dpa)