Hummer reportedly to be sold to China's Sichuan Tengzhong - Dayton Business Journal:

takes-trendsthe.blogspot.com
And the buyer, the reports, is a machiner company in western China, The , based in The Times cited an anonymous source after GM kept detailds of the deal very much hush The Chinese company will buy a brand that startedx asthe military’s Humvee and morphed into a civilian drea m machine. But GM is that the sale coulcd save morethan 3,000 U.S. jobs in engineering and at Hummer dealerships aroundthe country. And it says the deal is expectecd to close by the end of thethired quarter. GM claims in its release that the buyerewill “aggressively fund future Hummerr product programs.” GM will also keep building Hummersx for the Chinese company, on a contracgt basis.
That means that GM’s assemblh plant in Shreveport, La., will continue to contrac assemble H3 and H3T througy atleast 2010. Mike Levined reports that, “The buyer has a provemn track record ininternationao business, knows the Hummer brane can perform better globally, has a long-term development plan and is willinbg to invest in future The Times reports that Sichuaj Tengzhong is a privately ownee company known in China for making road equipment from highway construction to maintenanc machinery and that it had been moving into manufacturinyg heavy-duty trucks. If the deal is it would mark thefirst large-scale U.S.
automotive acquisitionj by a Chinese Levine reports that no Hummer dealerships willbe closed, and that U.S. domestix production of Hummers will actually be boostexd because the company will be moving productio n from aPort Elizabeth, Soutn Africa, plant to Shreveport. “Hummer is a stronh brand,” said Troy Clarke, President of GM Nort America. "I’m confident that Hummerd will thrive globally under itsnew ownership. And for GM, this sale continuesw to accelerate the reinvention of GM intoa leaner, more and more cost-competitive automaker.” For one Hummed dealer, it didn’t mattefr exactly who was buying the What mattered to Jacques Moore Jr.
of Moorre Hummer in Richmond, Va., was that the brand would continue, and that it would be a strong “It doesn’t really matter,” he told “as long as they continue to builda world-clasws product that’s like nothing else.” Moore said that, given Hummer’s strengthh in overseas markets, a Chinese buyerr would not come as a "Given the strength of the brand in the overseas market it would not surprise me." The deal doesn’y include Hummer’s military vehicles or technology. of Indiansa runs that end of the AM General sold the rightx to make civilian Hummers to GM inthe 1999.
The deal’x announcement comes a day after GM filed for bankruptcyu protection and outlined plans to offloasd nameplates so that the compangy could focus on more profitable brandslike Chevrolet, GMC, Buickl and Cadillac. Among GM brands left for sale nowthat there’x an apparent Hummer deal are Saab and Saturn. GM want s to sell those brands by the endof 2009. The compang plans to shut down its Pontiacnameplater altogether. The New York Times’ blog reports that even as the Hummerr salegoes forward, GM CEO Fritz Henderson said on Swedish radiok that there were three potentiapl buyers for Saab.
Dealbook, citing local media, said that Swedishn luxury carmaker Koenigsegg and American financierdIra Rennert’s Renco were in the running for Saab. GM says it has been approachedr by 16 potential buyers interested in theSaturh brand. That group includes financial investors and some companies interested in distributinvgSaturn vehicles. By various accounts, GM has been lookingf for someone to buy Hummer for a year as gas pricees shot to record levels and the public startedr to think in shades of When GM looked into selling Hummerlast summer, the companyh thought it could get as much as $500 millionn for the brand, the New York Times But that price has likely fallem as auto sales have plummeted.
Hummer salews are down 67 percent in the first four months ofthis