Chrysler, Merrill CEOs Passed Houses to Wives, Too

Dick Fuld’s wife isn’t the only one getting a discount mansion. Chrysler CEO Robert Nardelli and ex-Merrill Lynch honcho Stanley O’Neal have followed Fuld’s lead, handing their multimillion-dollar homes to their spouses, according to property records obtained by the New York Post. Such deed transfers are often used to protect the house from legal action.

The record of the Nardelli sale has some peculiarities—for one thing, the Chrysler boss is referred to as a married woman—and a Nardelli spokesman says that it doesn’t show a property transfer. A source close to O’Neal, meanwhile, says he handed his wife their $4.5 million Westchester home and his $20 million Park Avenue duplex as part of “an estate-planning process drawn up years ago.” (More Richard Fuld stories.)