kleinbl00, I thought the other article was kind of a one off thing, but I've seen three or four in the past week about Chinese Company X and FCA. Apparently this might really become a thing.
Naaah. Thing is, money's so cheap right now that if you want to show progress to your shareholders you buy something so you don't have to get them used to seeing a dividend (lookin' at you, Amazon). If Marchionne has let it be known that Chrysler is up for sale, people will kick the tires.
It's also worth noting that depending on how the deal is structured, the only way to see what a company's internal finances look like is to make an offer on it. It's been hypothesized that Google plays this game a lot.