REPORT: Porsche reportedly offered Wiedeking nearly $200M payout
Wendelin Wiedeking sat at the helm of Porsche for 16 of the company's most successful years. Under Wiedeking's watch, Porsche blessed the world's roads with the Boxster, Cayman, Carrera GT, Cayenne and now the Panamera. According to Wiedeking's lawyers, he Porsche and Piech families thought that was enough to warrant a 140 million euros ($199 million) payment to get the successful leader to leave the company.
Wiedeking was reportedly standing in the way of a deal between Porsche and Volkswagen, making his departure a something of a necessary evil. Porsche's labor reps didn't feel Wiedeking's dismissal was worth 140 million euros, so the company instead offered 50 million euros ($73 million). That's still an awful lot of money – especialy for a company that celebrates when it his 100,000 vehicles per year, and Wiedeking apparently agrees. The now ousted CEO claims that he'll give half the money to charity; a move that will likely win him a few new friends.
[Source: Automotive News - subs req'd | Image: Miguel Villagran/Getty]
Get a WordPress.com Blog
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tourian A5 9:54AM (7/27/2009)
I'd love to see the Wagoner do the same. It's not like you can burn through so many millions in a lifetime. You know, on a comfortable lifestyle.
Reply
dave1w41 10:10AM (7/27/2009)
Yeah... Wagoner got approximately 1/25th of what this guy got for ruining Porsche. He's only giving half of it to charity to offset the taxes on the first 100 million.
ntcougar7 11:26AM (7/27/2009)
@dave1w41:
His last movement with the Porsche was wrong but he saved the company in the early 90s from bankruptcy.
BLS 11:45AM (7/27/2009)
@dave1w41
And how much have you given to charity? Was it 50% of your income? Maybe they should have given him nothing that would be good for the charities, right?
JayC 9:59AM (7/27/2009)
1/2 of which, the 140million Euros or 50million ?
Reply
Markus 11:06AM (7/27/2009)
Half of the €50m, since he won't be getting the €200m ;). Plus, he's one of the few guys in these income spheres who actually has his formal residence in Germany, not in Monaco or Luxembourg. So in the end, of the €50m coming from Porsche's stockholders, he will donate €25m into a new charity foundation for Porsche's workers, a bit into some other charities, something like roughly €12m will be taxes and he will be left with 'only' 12m or less, part of which he will eventually spend on things again...
Not that he's Robin Hood or anything, but in the end that's a lot more than what any of the politicians, union people or journalists who now claim this payout to be indecent have done in their lives - for themselves as well as for others.
Frank 10:10AM (7/27/2009)
Wow! Automotive equivalent of what happened when Home Depot told Bob Nardelli to get lost.
Reply
simianspeedster 4:05PM (7/27/2009)
Not quite -- Nardelli ran Home Depot sideways for a bit, then straight downhill.
I don't agree with all the product choices Porsche has made in the last 10-15 years, but there's no denying that the company is in better shape today than they were back when all they really had going from them was the 911. I hate the Cayenne, but sans Cayenne, there would surely be no Cayman (which is basically my dream car). You gotta give to get.
Nardellis's excessive outgoing payment was a true golden parachute. Wiedeking's payment seems like a combination of severance and bonus/reward for a job well done. But for his objection to the merger, he probably could have stayed and made much of the money while employed, so the board decided to value the merger over the CEO -- seems quite simple and sensible.
FThorn 10:24AM (7/27/2009)
Everytime I see that guy he reminds me of Hogan's Heroes.
Reply
Emjay 10:27AM (7/27/2009)
Ahh...Its all become obvious now. He needed the truck loads of cash to invest in new hair treatment for himself.
Reply
Shiftright 11:25AM (7/27/2009)
And a nip/tuck to get rid of the turkey neck...
Emjay 11:42AM (7/27/2009)
Shifty, he should really just go out and buy a whole new body now shouldn't he!
Shiftright 11:24AM (7/27/2009)
Wow, you could buy a lot of Ferraris and Lamborghinis with that kind of cash!
Reply
cdwrx 12:01PM (7/27/2009)
A couple of minutes spent proofreading really would have helped this article.
Reply
hyundaifans.com 12:57PM (7/27/2009)
That is too much money regardless of his past company saving work......
Reply
Nicole 10:01PM (7/27/2009)
Dr. Wiedeking doesn't need to make new friends. The Porsche employees love him, and they are the the ones he is giving back to in form of a new non-profit.
He has always been a leader who showed responsibility for his employees. He openly critizised other managers who did not. He made one big mistake, which I'm sure was approved rather than stopped by the board. They were all in this together.
Dr. Wiedeking was just the figurehead. He may have gotten a bit too much attention because of his ideas for turning VW from a bureaucracy with too many entitlements into a more Porsche-like, lean and mean organization.
Reply