Bankrupt automaker General Motors announced that it now has a “memorandum of understanding” with a buyer for Hummer, its popular-yet-hated truck brand. This transaction is the part of GM’s strategic restructuring efforts.

The sale is expected to be completed by the end of the third quarter of 2009, and is subject to various conditions, including regulatory approvals.

The deal is expected to secure more than 3,000 U.S. jobs in manufacturing, engineering and dealerships around the country. The transaction also includes plans by the investor to aggressively fund future Hummer products. Under the selling terms, the identity of the purchaser and proposed financial terms of the agreement are not to be released at this time.

As part of the proposed transaction, HUMMER will continue to contract vehicle manufacturing and business services from GM during a defined transitional time period. For example, under the proposed agreement, GM’s Shreveport Assembly plant would continue to contract assemble the H3 and H3T through at least 2010.

We can only speculate on who the buyer might be. It could be one of India’s two SUV makers, or any one of China’s hundred automakers, or maybe even the Arabs, who will buy anything and everything. However, a day later, it was already out in the open that the buyer is an unknown Chinese manufacturing firm called Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company.

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