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For years, Cerberus was largely a trading shop specializing in distressed debt. But by the mid- 1990s, Mr. Feinberg expanded into buying and selling distressed companies and hired dozens of seasoned corporate executives to run them. Chrysler was the biggest prize he had ever bagged, and many co-investors say they always believed Cerberus's stake in Chrysler's auto operation was never the main reason the firm was interested in the company.

Mr. Feinberg, a longtime free-market enthusiast and a Republican who never envisioned himself needing the government for help, suddenly found himself running a company that needed federal support to stay alive.

By early last December, with Chrysler bleeding cash, he had become a vocal presence in Washington, circulating around Congressional offices to get his story out. He even offered to put tens of millions of his own money into Chrysler, a move that would have been largely symbolic.

At some point in December, Mr. Feinberg began to realize that Cerberus's investment in Chrysler's auto operations was largely unsalvageable. On Dec. 19, 2008, he offered to simply give the car company to the government, according to five people briefed on the conversation.

Mr. Feinberg says he was offering Cerberus's stake in the auto company to the government as a bargaining chit for negotiating with bankers, the union and others. But some Treasury officials were worried that he was simply trying to avoid leaving the finance unit on the hook for $2 billion of the $4 billion the auto operation received in federal aid.

Treasury officials declined Mr. Feinberg's offer and also were so wary of his motives that they put in a rule requiring that federal bailout money provided to Chrysler's financial arm could be used only to help Chrysler's auto unit.

When the Obama administration took over this year, Mr. Feinberg got a second chance to negotiate. He faced Steven Rattner, investment banker, as well as Ron Bloom, a former banker who worked more recently for the United Steelworkers union.

Mr. Feinberg was particularly focused on decreasing the $2 billion guarantee the previous administration had wrung out of Chrysler's financial arm. He eventually knocked that amount down by hundreds of millions of dollars after agreeing to give up some other things the government wanted - something Mr. Feinberg regards as a fair outcome.

Cerberus now values its Chrysler stake at 19 cents on the dollar. It is a humbling and embarrassing figure for Mr. Feinberg. But it's better than zero cents on the dollar, which is what his stake might have been worth had the government not bailed him out.

Mr. Feinberg and his colleagues at Cerberus maintain to this day that their time at Chrysler was, in part, a reflection of their patriotism - a view that some analysts find hard to swallow. Mr. Feinberg says his experience at Chrysler has left him feeling like a good citizen.