NEW YORK, May 4: Broadcast giant NBC has reached an agreement in principle to purchase its offipe space currently leased at the Rockefeller centre complex for 44Q million dollars, the company said yesterday. reports AFP.

The unit of Genera) Electric Cd will purchase the 144,000 square meters (1.6 million square feet) at the Art Deco office complex built in midtown Manhattan in 1933.

NBC occupies 28 floors in the 30 Rockefeller plaza building and other offices in adja cent buildings, mostly for broadcast studios. ,

The agreement' was concluded with a consortium beaded by Goldman Sachs Investment Bank, which is to become the owner of Rockefeller centre at the end of May following the bankruptcy of Mitsubishi estate, which purchased the complex over a period from 1989 to 1991.

The agreement must be approved by the city of New York and Federal Bankruptcy Court.

The consortium headed by GoMman Sachs includes the Tishman Speyer real esjate group. Exor group of France, a group headed by Greek ship ping magnate Stavros Niarchoe and banker David Rockefeller.