China's Ministry of Commerce Thursday agreed in principle the sale of almost 76 million yuan-denominated Midea Electric shares to GS Capital Partners Aurum Holdings, a fully-owned subsidiary of Goldman Sachs Group Inc, the Chinese home-appliance maker said on Friday.

Last November, Shenzhen-listed Midea Electric announced plans to sell 75.6 million shares at 9.48 yuan per share to the U.S. company to raise 717 million yuan (93 million U.S. dollars) to pay back debt and increase capital reserves.

At that time the company's shares were trading at less than 10 yuan. In the seven months since then, the shares have soared to close Friday at 39.5 yuan.

The share sale plan has been hanging in the air for more than six months.

If Goldman Sachs is to buy the stock at the original price it stands to earn a premium of nearly 2 billion yuan (260 million U.S. dollars) at the current share price.

The plan is still subject to approval by the state securities regulator, the company said.

Source: Xinhua