Fiat's 'Italian Job' Won't Have a Clean Getaway

Sergio Marchionne has pulled off the caper of a lifetime. The chief executive officer of Fiat SpA --having already rescued the Italian automaker from the brink and returned it to profitability within two years of taking charge in 2004 -- now appears to have saved it again by wrestling control of Chrysler from the United Auto Workers union VEBA trust. But like Michael Caine at the end of "The Italian Job" -- I'm talking the 1969 original, in which a gold-bar-laden bus teeters on the edge of a canyon wall -- Marchionne may find that his epic score places him in a cliffhanger.

Though Fiat's public-relations department may not like my comparing the Chrysler acquisition to a (fictional) theft, the modern auto industry has few precedents for the screamingly good deal Marchionne negotiated. Fiat will pay just $1.75 billion for the VEBA's 41 percent of Chrysler's equity.The rest of the cash for the deal ($1.9 billion up front and $700 million over three years) comes from Chrysler itself.