【英文原文】
Tracking Hummer's Mysterious Buyer
摘要：几乎每个关注通用汽车(General Motors)破产案的人都在问同一个问题：收购通用汽车旗下悍马(Hummer)品牌的这家中国公司到底是何方神圣？
Google searches shot up exponentially Tuesday for China's Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co.
Nearly everyone following the General Motors bankruptcy case is asking the same question: Who is the Chinese company buying GM's Hummer?
Not many have a good answer, not even some veteran industrial analysts. 'I don't know the Sichuan company,' said Scott Laprise, an analyst at CLSA Ltd. in China tracking the auto and steel industries.
It isn't just on Google, and it isn't just in the U.S. Before Tuesday's news hit the Web, only a handful of results showed up for Sichuan Tengzhong on www.baidu.com, the largest Chinese search engine.
The top results? Job posts on a migrant workers' Web site and chat room conversations about its possible salary. One Sichuan local wrote in a bulletin board that Tengzhong pays its employees about 3,000 yuan a month, or about $450.
Tengzhong's own Web site said the company specializes in producing construction equipment and special-use vehicles. According to China Security News, a leading financial newspaper in the country, Tengzhong has never made its own consumer vehicles.
Little is known about the finances of the closely held company. China News Net, an official Chinese news site, said Tengzhong expected revenue in 2007 of 3 billion yuan, or $440 million. As bankers estimate the Hummer deal's price as less than $500 million, the question remains, is Tengzhong biting off more than it can chew.
Tengzhong's interest in the gas-guzzling Hummer brand seems somewhat counterintuitive, as the company just entered the business of making wind-turbine gearboxes last year.
Chinese mainstream news and individuals expressed mixed feelings. Some took great pride in the prospect of making Hummer a Chinese brand, while others think Tengzhong is only buying something GM wants to get rid of. This acquisition 'is an irrational reaction in a time of financial crisis. China has a great number of rich people who are dying to own a piece of the great brand,' wrote Mihai Keman on Sina forum, China's biggest news portal.
According to a report from Xinhua, China's official news agency, China's government is reviewing the deal. As the Chinese government is trying to promote efforts to introduce fuel-efficient automobiles, it will be interesting to see how the government reacts to an acquisition that has garnered worldwide attention.
