General Motors has reached a preliminary agreement to sell its Hummer brand of large sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks to a machinery company in western China with ambitions of becoming a carmaker.
The Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company Ltd., based in Chengdu, concluded the agreement with G.M., which announced the deal on Tuesday morning but did not confirm the identity of the buyer until Tuesday evening in Detroit, The New York Times’s Keith Bradsher and Nick Bunkley report.
G.M., in its earlier announcment, said the memorandum of understanding would not allow it to disclose the price. Industry analysts have estimated that the Hummer division would sell for less than $500 million.
G.M. filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday, and it is seeking to sell various brands and emerge as a slimmed-down automaker. G.M. executives said in a conference call Tuesday morning that the company had 16 potential bidders for its Saturn brand, and three possible bidders for Saab.
Sichuan Tengzhong is a privately owned company, but Tuesday’s deal for Hummer required preliminary vetting by Beijing officials, who retain the right to veto any effort at an overseas acquisition by a Chinese company and who give special attention to deals over $100 million.
Sichuan Tengzhong is known in China for making a wide range of road equipment, from bridge piers to highway construction and maintenance machinery. But even before the Hummer deal, the company had been moving more into heavy-duty trucks, including tow trucks and oil tankers.
