Would you believe that trading in China’s SAIC, joint venture partner of GM and Volkswagen, had been suspended since February now? Trading should resume soon, now that the world knows what the real reason for the monster halt is. It’s a long story. It all starts with the fact that there are two SAICs.

There is SAIC Motor Corp., the Shanghai company that has the joint ventures and that also makes its own Roewe, MG and sundry other cars.  Then there is the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp , commonly abbreviated as SAIC. They own 72.95 percent of SAIC Motor Corp. With me so far?

“China’s securities regulator has urged Chinese companies to list their entire businesses to increase transparency and improve corporate governance,” writes Reuters. So is SAIC (the one with the longer name) fulfilling the wish of its government by issuing gobs of shorter name SAIC shares to the public at the Shanghai stock exchange ? Not exactly.

Longer name SAIC also owns auto part manufacturing and new-energy car operations, such as Huayu Automotive .  Those will be taken over by shorter name SAIC in return for  28.6 billion yuan ($4.4 billion), Reuters reports. However, no cash will change hands. It will be “an all share deal” says Reuters. And the result?

“Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp’s shareholdings in SAIC Motor is expected to rise following the restructuring, SAIC Motor said.” Tut, tut.

Let the trading resume!