Barclays to Sell $6.1B BlackRock Stake: Hot Trends

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Popular searches on the Internet Monday include Barclays (BCS) after news the bank will sell its stake in BlackRock (BLK), worth $6.1 billion.

After holding the 19.6% stake for nearly three years, Barclays intends to sell the shares through an offering and a related buyback by BlackRock of up to $1 billion of the stock.

The move is being made as the latest round of Basel rules would maintain that Barclays set aside capital against the stake. Barclays intends to sell the stake before the rules would force the bank from counting it as capital. The bank is also shedding unsuccessful investments or businesses in an attempt to drive its return on equity back above 13%.

Barclays also indicated that CEO Robert Diamond will step down from BlackRock's board after the stake is sold.

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Yahoo! (YHOO) is trending as Alibaba is buying back a 20% stake held by Yahoo! for $7.1 billion.

Yahoo will sell half of its 40% stake in Alibaba for $6.3 billion in cash and up to $800 million in new Alibaba preferred stock. Yahoo! purchased the stake for about $1 billion in 2005.

Yahoo! said it would return after-tax cash proceeds from the deal to shareholders, increasing a share buyback plan by $5 billion. Alibaba will make a royalty payment of $550 million to Yahoo! and will also continue to operate Yahoo China and pay continued royalties for up to four years.

The move comes after years of speculation that Alibaba hoped to reclaim some or all of Yahoo!'s stake. Relations between the two companies have been tense since Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang was replaced by Carol Bartz. The two have also struggled to come to terms over Alibaba's payment segment Alipay as well as Yahoo!'s efforts to include more directors at Alibaba.

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Mark Zuckerberg is another popular search. Just one day after the long-awaited Facebook (FB) initial public offering, the founder of the social networking site married his longtime girlfriend Priscilla Chan over the weekend.

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The chatter on Main Street (a.k.a. Google, Yahoo! and other search sites) is always of interest to investors on Wall Street. Thus, each day, TheStreet compiles the stories that are trending on the Web, and highlights the news that could make stocks move.

-- Written by Brittany Umar.

Brittany joined TheStreet.com TV in November 2006 after completing a degree in Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers College. Previously, Brittany interned at the local ABC affiliate in New York City WABC-TV 7 where she helped research and produce On Your Side, a popular consumer advocacy segment.