The sale of Barclays' iShares exchange-traded fund business to private equity firm CVC Capital Partners could be announced as soon as Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site on Wednesday.

The price tag for the deal is likely to be around 3 billion pounds ($4.4 billion). Barclays will likely retain a 20 percent stake in the business.

iShares ended 2008 with AUM of 226 billion pounds.

Tuesday last week, Barclays confirmed that Luxembourg-headquartered CVC Capital is its preferred bidder for the business (see The MFWire, 03/31/09).  

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