WOW HOME DEPOT!

Well, let’s see what he can do. Maybe some fresh blood will pump new life into Chrysler and make them *the* 21st century auto manufacturer.

He ran Home Depot into the ground folks.

Savedsol is right.

He was bad for Home Depot for years.

Wearing a suit and tie and playing golf with your company board buddies doesn’t make you compenent to run a company, much less a car company.

Well unless he does something right, he won’t be getting paid. That should be a decent motivator. Playing golf with his buddies will only work if those buddies have real ideas about real cars.

Home Cheapo sucks.

Is that the same jackass that mismanaged Home Depot while walking away with $200 million for himself?

Yeah, Madcapp…that would be him. Not a good sign for Chrysler, sounds like the only good thing in this deal is that he doesn’t get paid until theres a profit. But somehow in my mind I find this situation highly unlikely.

As for the Depot…we have a Lowes 1/4 mile down the road from HD, lets just say I never go to the Depot unless they specifically have something onsale or not available at Lowes. It’s amazing how much “nicer” the Lowes stores are compared to HD.

What it says is that his salary is based on Chrysler’s equity value. That means there is some mysterious backdoor calculation to determine his pay, and since it is a private company the equity value is a little more arbitrary. My experience with having seen this set up is that this guy will drive very specifically whatever makes that calculation work for him. I think Cerberus should have put a few “intangibles” in there also such as market share gains, vehicle benchmarks, and quality improvements, although these are harder to calculate.

Well since everyone on here seems to have a long term memory problem, Nardelli did do some good things while at GE. I won’t deny the disaster created at Home Depot, we still shop there (and we still use the real checkout, not those damned selfcheckout pieces of ****.). But these are different circumstances which means we have no idea what will happen. Again, if memory serves correct, Wolfgang is still under his non-compete clause from VW so this could only be a stop gap measure, everyone seems to thing he would be perfect for the top spot, not me he has always reminded me of a Lutzian, #2 kinda man. In a perfect world, this could all work out for the best. Nardelli handles the finances, Wolfgang would someday handle product development, and LaSorda be relegated to production, cause that’s what he does best.

I’ve already resigned myself to the fact that Cerberus will either make or break my beloved Chrysler, so now it’s just a wait and see game now. Nevertheless, let the speculative hating commence…

I thought everybody hated this guy. He ran Home Depot shareholders meetings with such a tyrannical iron hand, the shareholders wanted him tarred and feathered. This is the guy who cratered Home Depot’s stock price, forced destructive and anti-customer “efficiency improvements,” destroyed the leading brand in big-box hardware, and walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars. He’s one of the most hated CEOs in America – a poster boy for malfeasance and malpractice.

So naturally he runs Chrysler now. Jesus.

R-head: Straight Bosh. At least the shareholders should know this guy plans to screw them. His pay should be based on three things.

How much money the company makes (if it loses money, he gets minimum wage)

What the employees ger (maybe 5X the average of the unions top 50 percent)

and

The quality of the cars (deferred payments for 20 years, with his cut depending on how many cars made during each year are still on the road)

With 200 mil in the bank the wanker shouldn’t get paid a red cent unless the company becomes wildly profitable.

The fact that he wont’ be getting paid doesn’t matter a xxxxing bit, didn’t any of you see he banked over 200 million?? he could care xxxxin less if he gets paid, hes set for life, and so are his kids, and their kids…etc

“his retail experience could help Chrysler’s dealership relations.”

I smell trouble for the dealers who got the letters. Soon they will get the axese! He is going to create unhappy dealers and in turn unhappy dealer experience and unhappy customers.

Guys it doesnt matter. He won’t be king of Chrysler, there’s other people involved in running the company too. And the no pay until profit idea is brilliant. Besides, his 200 million+ from Home Depot should last him a while.

Until now I’ve had hope that Cerberus will take Chrysler in the right direction. But this move does not look good. Shouldn’t someone with extensive manufacturing experience run a manufacturer? Secondly, I know nothing about Chrysler’s relationships with its dealers, but even if they suck that is not Chrysler’s biggest problem – it is product. Focusing on marketing is right in line with Ridenour being pissed off at his subordinates for “missing the market” on the road noise level, interior quality, and some other factor (I forget) of recent models (Nitro?). In other words, they built to what they thought was the lowest common denominator. Not only a stupid approach in the extremely competitive auto market, but the dumbasses underestimated their competitors’ products. How about just building the best cars you can and price them appropriately?! And a CEO who knows something about doing that would be a real good idea.

Putting the bulk of your cash into the product is what great car companys do. This is not what “private equity” companies do…they cut, get lean, and take bids for the parts and pieces. Cerberus will first sell off Jeep for a large chunk of cash, then Chrysler Financial, then what will be left is Chrysler/Dodge. Then that will be sold to someone serious who wants to put lots of cash into the product pipeline. Get ready for alot of cheap plastic on outdated cars/trucks for awhile until it all shakes out.

you know its funny i’m almost done with reading lee iacoccas book (extremely interesting by the way)and this is exactly what a car company should do. Dont pay the CEO millions of dollars unless he shows that he desserves it. Pay the man if he does good and let him starve to death if he drives the company to the ground. I can actually stop talking trash about chrysler now and praise them for this smart move. so far so good cerberus!

I agree that Bernhard is definitely still a factor in the “New Chrysler,” but due to the non-compete clause his role in the company is not being disclosed. A “Lutzian” product czar position is probably exactly what they want to do with him, and this gives me some hope yet.

Because there is not salary attached, I assume that payola for him will be when company will be split and sold apart. Neither GE or Home Depot had dealer sales channels and his experience of centralization is more helpful for Hugo Chavez then for Chrysler. He does have background with manufacturing in China and that is were Chrysler probably heading.

Well, if Jeep gets sold I pray some competent, serious company takes it over, like MB. After all, it’s Chrysler’s halo marque, and demonstrates record sales when everyone else is slumping.

MB ran Chrysler into the ground – doubt they would do much different with Jeep. Even their own brainchild Smart is a finacial flop.

I HOPE HE HAS BRIGHT IDEAS TOWARDS THE COMPANY.