ELUXY AB Electrolux (PK)

General Electric Co. said Thursday its proposed $5.4 billion sale of its appliance business to China's Haier Group had received a green light from U.S. antitrust authorities.

The approval comes from the Justice Department, which last year sued to block GE's previous plan to sell the appliance business, to Sweden's Electrolux AB.

GE backed out of that transaction in December, pocketing a $175 million breakup fee, and quickly struck a new deal in January at a much higher price with Haier, an ambitious Chinese manufacturer with minimal presence in the U.S. market.

"The completion of the review is an important step toward closing the transaction, which GE continues to target for mid-2016," GE spokesman Seth Martin said.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

The GE-Haier deal may still face other U.S. regulatory reviews, and the deal must be approved by Haier shareholders. Haier has said it would pay a breakup fee of $200 million to $400 million if the deal were blocked by regulators or voted down by its shareholders.

GE has tried at least three times to sell the Louisville, Ky.-based appliance business over the past decade. They were stymied first when the recession limited available buyers in 2008, and again last year when the Justice Department took issue with the $3.3 billion Electrolux deal, on the grounds that it would consolidate the market for cooktops and wall-mounted ovens, especially for commercial builders.

GE's decision to part with the appliance unit comes as the conglomerate has tried to shed commoditized, low-margin lines of business, in favor of its more high-tech industrial products like power turbines, jet engines and oil and gas equipment.

Write to Ted Mann at ted.mann@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 03, 2016 13:45 ET (18:45 GMT)

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