Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs said yesterday that it had agreed to sell a 15.7 per cent stake in troubled Sanyo Electric to Panasonic Corp. for about $1.4 billion.

Goldman said its Oceans Holdings Co. investment fund had signed an agreement to sell slightly more than half of its shares in Sanyo for 131 yen each as part of Panasonic's takeover of the struggling electronics maker.

It will retain a stake of 13.3 per cent which it "may sell in the near future," Goldman spokesperson Hiroko Matsumoto said. Panasonic announced in December that it had struck a deal to acquire a 70.5-per cent stake in Sanyo for up to 800 billion yen, buying shares from Goldman as well as Japan's Daiwa Securities and Sumitomo Mitsui. Sanyo shares have risen sharply since then, ending yesterday at 246 yen.

Panasonic had aimed to announce the launch of the tender offer by late February but it has been delayed due to regulatory issues.

Sanyo, which started out making bicycle lamps after World War II, issued several billion dollars' worth of stock to the clutch of financial heavyweights in 2006 to shore up its capital base.