[WILMINGTON] Brookstone Inc, the luxury-gadget retailer, won bankruptcy court approval of its plan to sell the chain to a group of Chinese buyers for about US$174 million which will be used to pay creditors.

US Bankruptcy Judge Brendan Linehan Shannon in Wilmington, Delaware, approved the sale to a company backed by the Chinese conglomerate Sanpower Group and the Hong Kong-based private-equity firm Sailing Capital. The sale is the cornerstone of the retailer's bankruptcy exit plan, also approved on Monday.

Brookstone started in 1965 as a catalogue business offering "hard-to-find tools" before opening its first store in 1973 in Peterborough, New Hampshire, according to its website. Most of its locations in the US and Puerto Rico are in malls.