Chrysler CEO

As the deal to sell Chrysler to Cerberus Capital Management finally came to a close on Friday, there was one rather salient fact that slipped under the radar. Robert Nardelli was appointed Chrysler's chairman and chief executive officer upon the deal's completion.

Chrysler is American again

That's right. Ceberus has confirmed that the disgraced former CEO of Home Depot (Charts, Fortune 500), who became the poster child for excessive CEO compensation, has taken the reigns at Chrysler. On the day the deal was finalized, August 3, Nardelli was elected to the Chrysler board. Soon after, the directors appointed him chairman and chief executive.

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Nardelli angered Home Depot shareholders when he refused to take questions during a shareholder meeting in May 2006 as the stock was floundering. His rich pay package drew fire; he earned $38.1 million last year. Ultimately he was forced out of the company in January 2007, but left with a $210 million golden parachute in cash and stock options that included a $20 million severance payment and retirement benefits of $32 million.

To be sure, plenty of executives before Nardelli have gotten away with big paychecks and imperious behavior. In the end, it was the stock price that got him. As Bernie Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot, told Fortune after Nardelli's departure, "if the stock had doubled, who would have cared? Instead it went nowhere, and that's what this is all about."

By the time Nardelli left the retail chain, its shares were trading at about the same price as when he arrived in 2000. Moreover, analysts said that the stock had actually lost about 40% of its value because a series of stock
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