Porsche's Wiedeking tipped to get $140M golden parachute?
If the rumored deal for Volkswagen to consume Porsche is indeed accurate, then there are only two things left: the shouting, and the sound of Porsche CEO Wendelin Wiedeking departing his post in a Brinks truck filled with €100 million ($141M USD). German newspaper Bild am Sonntag reported "it is now no longer a question of if, but of how Wendelin Wiedeking will step aside, and that he will clear his desk voluntarily in the coming week."
Over his 16-year tenure at the top, Wiedeking has turned Porsche from an automaker offering one iconic car and a couple of others into the maker of one iconic car and several hugely profitable models. Still, his departure now comes after driving Porsche to the brink, and if €100M sounds like a lot of money to leave in humble circumstances, well, that's because it is.
Yet, if this report is to be believed, it's not an outrageous sum in the world of Wiedeking: his pay packet for 2007 was said to amount to €60M ($85M USD). No matter what he gets, and it will certainly be substantial, he will leave behind a company subsequently controlled by its mass market sibling. And although Porsche labor boss Uwe Heck said, "VW will never be able to buy the souls of Porsche employees," their time, their cars and their technology are another story.
[Source: Drive.com.au | Image Source: Alexander Hassenstein/Getty]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Venom 11:04AM (7/20/2009)
Not bad work if you can get it:)
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BigMcLargeHuge 11:11AM (7/20/2009)
"VW will never be able to buy the souls of Porsche employees"
Unless they taunt them with a forbidden donut.
Mmmm.... forbidden donut..... (drools)
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vkchu 12:35PM (7/20/2009)
he looks like a bratwurst
Mike 11:12AM (7/20/2009)
Wow!!! I wonder how much skin he had in the game? Not much I'll bet.
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Throwback 11:35AM (7/20/2009)
Porsche was in bad shape when he took over. No one thought they could remain independent for this long. My guess is he has substantially increased the Porsche family wealth over the last 16 years. It looks like he got caught up in one of Piech's ego trips.
Mike 11:52AM (7/20/2009)
He's got Porsche in a bit of a mess now doesn't he. Nice payoff for his loading Porsche up with a debt load that may crush the company.
Wombert 6:30PM (7/20/2009)
He did, actually. When Wiedeking took the post of CEO in the early 1990s, he took liability for all of Porsche's debts so that the banks would keep loaning Porsche money. He turned the company around, and as a thank you, the Porsche family wanted to give him stock options. Piech opposed, and they did a deal instead where he would get 0.9% of the profits every year. Given how successful he was, that nowadays translates into literal truckloads lot of money.
And it's not like stock holders, the German tax authorities and all the others who are now bashing him didn't profit from Porsches comeback story.
Preston 11:23AM (7/20/2009)
I don't get it. I thought Porsche was buying VW?
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BigMcLargeHuge 11:43AM (7/20/2009)
They were, but on a tremendous loan. That debt nearly bankrupted
them.
VW buying controlling shares of Porsche will allow Porsche to avoid
bankruptcy.
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thecheddar 5:36PM (7/20/2009)
This is obscene. The guy nearly bankrupts his company (and devestates a number of hedge funds) through financial trickery and gets $140 mil, gratis? There's a special place in Hell for this man's kind.
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strchild3 2:30PM (7/20/2009)
I am a Porsche employee and will gladly sell my soul.
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sunz 2:44PM (7/20/2009)
so where did the money go? i assume they bought huge amounts of volkswagon stock ... why not just sell them and pay down the loan to a more manageable amount ... But i assume someone would have thought of that and there is a reason they are where they are now .... *sigh* VW Audi Porche not a bad set of names i suppose .. i just hope they don't integrate porche with VW(s) .. maybe a little audi / porche sharing would be ok ..
-sun
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BigMcLargeHuge 3:17PM (7/20/2009)
I'm sure someone made a ton of money on this. Makes me wonder if it wasn't the plan all along.
Porsche buying VW stock, (even though they couldn't afford it) and then having VW buy Porsche stock so that they could afford the VW stock.
That would be like me taking out a loan on a 599 GTB, and then having someone pay off my loan so I can keep the 599 GTB without spending a dime of my own money.
I wish I had connections. Nobody cares if I go bankrupt, but Porsche has clout. And they flaunted it.
Polly Prissy Pants 4:57PM (7/20/2009)
"If the rumored deal for Volkswagen to consume Porsche is indeed accurate, then there are only two things left: the shouting, and the sound of Porsche CEO Wendelin Wiedeking departing his post in a Brinks truck filled with €100 million ($141M USD)."
Someday our grandkids will be reading about the times we're currently experiencing in their history books, wondering why we allowed it all to happen. They'll blame us, and rightly so, for their poor lot in life. Of course they'll have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight as we do today when looking back on pivotal times, but they'll blame us all the same. Not Mr. Wiedeking's kids though. They'll be too busy with polo, eating condor egg omeletes and planning their dinner party with the Queen. The peasants are complaining? Let them eat German cake.
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Why should I have all the fun? 5:09PM (7/20/2009)
Welcome back the age of the robber barons.
And I thought this 'golden parachute' crap was an American thang.
This level of wealth concentration in one man is wrong. And yes, I am a staunch capitalist.
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Tim 5:36PM (7/20/2009)
This man saved Porsche, he deserves it.
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Ted 12:20AM (7/21/2009)
For many members of the Porsche / Piech family is only a matter of money moving from one pocket to the other. They own the holding company that owns VW which may wind ou owning Porsche. And in the other pocket they own the holding company that owns porsche that would have owned VW.
As for Wendelin Wiedeking .... Ok , you can only play with Fire so many times before you get burned, but considering the state of a lot of other auto makers it seems to me that he earned his paycheck. Hopfuly he and and family spend a buch of it at the Porsche store.
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Mike7475 7:01AM (7/22/2009)
Goes to show... NOBODY messes with dr Piech!
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