#Tengzhong

As connoisseurs will certify, daily Hummers are good for you. The Chinese agree and keep us supplied with the delicious staple of GM (and we don’t mean genetically modified) food.

Yesterday, we announced that time may be running out for the Hummer-Tengzhong deal. Jalopnik even went as far as saying that the deal is dead.

“Not so” said Shanghai Daily in the early Chinese morning hours of Wednesday. One of their sources said that “the chances of having the deal approved had dropped to 50-50,” another source of the Shanghai paper remained defiant: “Tengzhong has not given up hope yet to win government approval.”

This (U.S.) morning, the Wall Street Journal weighed in on the matter. Their Beijing correspondent reconnected with her “person close to the situation” after the source had returned from the Chinese New Year holidays. That impeccable source reported that “Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co. has been told that the Chinese government won’t clear its deal to buy General Motors Co.’s Hummer unit.”

In the afternoon, Reuters did a straddle.

Although the Chinese government takes much of February off for New Year festivities, GM’s deal to sell HUMMER to Sichuan Tengzhong has exactly one week left before a self-imposed deadline for completion arrives. The deal is being held up by China’s Commerce Ministry which has publicly said that it wants the Chinese auto industry to consolidate and become “greener,” two goals that are severely at odds with Sichuan Tengzhong’s HUMMER aspirations. Now, the Financial Times reports that Tengzhong may be trying to pull an end-around on the Chinese government by pursuing a purchase via an offshore investment vehicle. This would (in theory) evade the requirement for the Commerce Ministry’s approval. In reality …

And another Wale of a story: Just as production of the Hummer H3 and H3T is c oming to an end in Shreveport, LA, Kevin Wale, Prez. of GM China, says he hopes Chinese regulators will finally approve the sale of Hummer to Tengzhong.

“I’m optimistic that it’s going to happen,” Wale told the Freep reporters on the sidelines of the Automotive News World Congress in Detroit. “Tengzhong is not an established manufacturer and that’s an issue that needs to be addressed with the Chinese regulators.” Uh-oh.

And the Hummer mess is marching on: Both Tengzhong and SAIC deny reports in the Chinese press that they are planning to cooperate in the production of the Hummer SUV in China. A lot of sense it would make:

As every salesmanperson knows, you’ve got to close the deal. It’s as simple as ABC. Always Be Closing. Looks like the only thing GM is adept at closing is dealerships. All deals to get rid of its unloved, neglected, and money losing brands have either been canceled, or are barely up in the air. From Opel to Saab to HUMMER. Yes, HUMMER. Haven’t we been told that that beast has long been foisted off on a formerly unknown Chinese company called Tengzhong? It hasn’t. And it won’t be for a while. If at all.

With all the noise about GM’s interruptus of the Opel sale, we could forget that there is a brand GM wants to sell, badly: Hummer. Since June it had been announced that the sale of Hummer to little-known Tengzhong in China is as good as done. Except that it wasn’t.

Still ain’t.