Home Depot's ex-CEO Robert Nardelli has become a media target after he resigned, revealing his 'golden parachute' amounting to over $210 million. This pay came in addition to his existing $300 million in compensation, which he received during the course of his tenure at the Home Depot. Meanwhile, shareholders suffered through sub par performance when compared to Lowe's (Home Depot's main competitor). Most investors fail to realize that this type of compensation is actually quite common in corporate America. Here are a few of the most notable instances of over-compensation in the past:

Pfizer's Henry McKinnell left the company with a $213 million pay package with an $83 million pension. This came despite shareholder losses amounting to over $137 billion during his tenure. Sovereign Bank's Jay Sidu left the company with over $44 million after being removed via a long proxy battle with shareholders. Many other CEOs were removed from their posts with tens of millions of dollars of compensation, from companies like Morgan Stanley (Philip Purcell), Viacom (Tom Fretson), and Hewitt-Packard (Carly Fiorina).

While there are many highly paid CEOs that deserve the pay they receive, there are countless others that profit handsomely while shareholders suffer through losses. While new executive compensation disclosure rules should help increase transparency, there is still a lot of work left to do before we see executive interests truly aligned with shareholder interests.