The two asset managers are China Huarong Asset Management Corp. and Rongde Asset Management Co., according to the Beijing Financial Assets Exchange, which will handle the sale.

Huarong is a state-owned company, while Rongde is a joint venture between Huarong and Germany's Deutsche Bank.

Huarong wants to sell its 83.5 million shares for 388 million yuan ($61 million), while Rongde expects to sell its 16.5 million shares for 77 million yuan.

Huarong's holdings amount to a 2.2 percent stake in Chery, while Rongde's shares represent a 0.4 percent stake.

In 2009, the two asset management companies and three other institutional investors acquired 20 percent of Chery for 2.9 billion yuan in anticipation of the automaker's initial public offering in the domestic stock market.

But Chery's auto manufacturing unit has lost money, which forced the company to shelve its IPO.

Chery's auto business lost nearly 874 million yuan in 2010, according to information submitted by Huarong and Rongde to the Beijing Financial Assets Exchange.

Chery is headquartered in Wuhu of east China's Anhui province. In the first ten months of this year. Chery's sales rose 7 percent year-on-year to 452,621 vehicles, according to J.D. Power.

However, most of those vehicles are priced below 60,000 yuan, with thin profit margins.