Porsche offered Wiedeking 140 million euros to go: lawyer

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The Porsche and Piech families were prepared to offer Porsche Chief Executive Wendelin Wiedeking 140 million euros ($199 million) for his resignation, his lawyer told Reuters on Friday.

The payout would have been easily the highest severance package in German corporate history.

"Wiedeking did not demand this amount. It was an offer presented by the families, but the labor representatives on the supervisory board would not accept it," said Jobst-Hubertus Bauer from the Gleiss Lutz law firm.

The princely sum was approved by Chairman Wolfgang Porsche and steering committee member Hans-Michel Piech, he explained.

The Porsche CEO could have received even more had Wiedeking demanded the full amount authorized to him in his contract, which was set to run until 2012.

"Wiedeking was entitled to get between 170-260 million euros, depending on the results of the fiscal year 2008/09 (that ends on July 31), had there been no agreement," Bauer added.

In the end, the Porsche CEO left the company with a smaller parachute, of 50 million euros, and pledged to donate half to charity.

The head of the SPD's conservative wing Johannes Kahrs called the payout "perverse" while the finance expert of the rival CDU/CSU fraction said it was "the wrong signal," according to comments made in the German media.

Wiedeking had blocked efforts to merge with Volkswagen, and his departure paves the way for an integration of Porsche within Volkswagen, ending a months-long struggle.

A spokesman for German trade union IG Metall confirmed that the 140 million euro payment was rejected by labor representatives, which comprise half of the Porsche board.

Porsche SE could not be reached for a statement.

(Reporting by Edward Taylor, Christiaan Hetzner)