Shreveport Mayor Petitions Washington Officials to Expedite HUMMER Deal

Shreveport, LA Mayor Cedric Glover was in Washington D.C. this week and met with top government officials in the Whitehouse. Glover was there to stress the importance of keeping HUMMER manufacturing in his town and the importance of expediting the approval process of the HUMMER sale.

Mayor Glover, fresh off a trip to China, met with officials such as Ron Bloom, one of Obama’s top auto advisors, Tim Lee of General Motors, and Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu.

“I delivered the message that we are ready to work with all parties to confront this challenge head-on and identify solutions well before the scheduled shut-down of the facility,” said Mayor Glover. “I also asked Mr. Bloom and Sen. Landrieu to consider reaching out to the Chinese government to urge immediate approval of the Hummer deal, which is an important step to ensuring the long-term viability of our local plant and opportunity for our well-trained work force.”

According to KSLA, Glover was asked what he believed the chances were of the Chinese approving HUMMER, to which he responded 7.5 out of 10.

“Until it’s signed, sealed, and delivered, I still will have to approach it with cautious optimism and also still be ready and continue to prepare that we may well as a region as a city as a state, have to deal with option number three which means that facility would have to be repurposed for some duty other than auto manufacturing,”

It seems a little strange that Mayor Glover would be placing odds without having first-hand knowledge of the deal which has been negotiated at the highest levels of GM and Tengzhong.

We won’t quantify our estimates, but maintain that a Chinese company that is about to spend an estimated $150 million to purchase HUMMER, and follow that up with another $800 million to $2 billion to strengthen the brand, doesn’t get this far into the process with having relative certainty that Chinese regulators will approve the deal.

In the near-term, the Shreveport plant will stay busy. Starting Monday, the plant will build a limited run of 2010 H3 and H3T models with regular production scheduled to ramp up on November 9th.