Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co, which gained public recognition after its failed attempt to acquire US auto brand Hummer in 2009, said Tuesday the company is still operating, despite an online Weibo post that said the company has gone broke and major executives have disappeared.

"It is business as usual," an employee from the Sichuan-based company, who declined to be named, told the Global Times Tuesday, adding that most of the company's executives were still at the company on Tuesday.

Earlier on Tuesday, a public account on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo named Lanjing published a post which said that Sichuan Tengzhong had halted production and its real owners have gone missing, leaving behind billions of yuan in debt.

Lanjing is an online community consisting of over 3,000 business and financial reporters.

According to Lanjing, Li Yan, a major investor in the company, has been found to be missing and the police are investigating the matter with Li being accused of committing fraud, illegal fund-raising and forging financial documents.

At the same time, a museum with over 30,000 antiques owned by Li in Chengdu, capital of Southwest China's Sichuan Province, has been sealed by the local court, Lanjing said.

Efforts to reach local police and the court failed on Tuesday.

Sichuan Tengzhong first gained fame in 2009, when it announced it would acquire General Motors' Hummer brand for a reported price of $150 million. Though the deal eventually failed as it did not get approval from Chinese authorities, the company still earned a lot of publicity. 

Zhang Zhigang, another de facto owner of Sichuan Tengzhong and chairman of Hong Kong-listed China Lumena New Materials Corp, in which Li is also a major shareholder, is also missing, said Lanjing.

Trading of Lumena shares has been halted since March 25 after US short-seller Glaucus Research issued a report accusing the company of making "numerous material misrepresentations" in its 2009 IPO prospectus and following financial statements.

Media reports said Tuesday that a Lumena subsidiary, Sichuan Deyang Chemical, also halted production. Calls to reach Deyang Chemical went unanswered on Tuesday, but an employee at Deyang Chemical's Shanghai sales office said the Shanghai office is still operating.

The Lanjing public account said Tuesday that Li and Zhang left behind over 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) in debt. Major banks such as China Development Bank, Agricultural Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Standard Chartered Bank are said to be involved.

Among the 10 billion yuan in debt, around 2 billion yuan came from the private lending sector, media said.

"It was easy to get funds from banks in the past few years, as the Chinese economy was booming. The cost of financing was high due to the optimistic prospects on future returns," said Wang Danqing, a partner at Beijing-based ACME consultancy.

"But once the economy slows down and high returns can not be guaranteed, it will be hard for them to maintain the capital chain," Wang told the Global Times Tuesday, noting that high growth in the past led to many irrational investments.

Citing a source close to Li, Lanjing also said in a Weibo post Tuesday that reckless investment decisions are a major reason for the downfall of Li's business.

There have been many cases of company bosses going missing or committing suicide recently, especially in the private lending and steel trading sector. Wang noted that an increasing number of such cases is closely related to the nation's overall economic situation. 

"Banks are also tightening loans given the slowdown, which will also affect the cash flow of companies," Wang said, noting that compared with State-owned companies, private ones are suffering much more pressure in capital flow.