BANKING

S&L; Asset Sale Approved: The agency conducting the government’s cleanup of the S&L; industry has approved the biggest sale to date of a package of sour loans. The Resolution Trust Corp. is selling a portfolio of loans on California and Arizona real estate, with a face value of $1.1 billion, to General Electric Capital Corp. and a company affiliated with the Robert Bass Group. Their winning bid was $527 million. About 70% of the loans are on apartment buildings. The rest are on retail, commercial and office buildings. All are sub-performing or nonperforming, meaning borrowers are behind on their payments or have stopped paying altogether.