Fiat gives outgoing Ferrari chairman $35M severance package

Thu, 11 Sep 2014

Luca di Montezemolo may not have wanted to leave Ferrari this way, but don't feel too bad for the departing chairman, because he'll be hitting the ground with a golden parachute so big that he'll never have to work again.

According to the latest reports, Fiat will pay Montezemolo 26.95 million euros (nearly $35 million) in severance pay. A little more than half of that will be paid in a lump sum of 13.71 million euros ($17.7M, equivalent to five times his annual salary) on January 31, 2015, with the rest to be paid within the next 20 years.

The payment is contingent on Montezemolo not going to work for a competitor, so don't expect to see him replacing Stephan Winkelmann at Lamborghini or Wolfgang Dürheimer at Bugatti any time soon. At least not until March 2017. Of course with that much cash on hand, the 67-year-old marquis need never work again, but considering how busy he's used to keeping himself, we'd be surprised if he didn't pop up again somewhere.

Aside from his leadership of Ferrari, Montezemolo has also chaired the Fiat Group, the Formula One Teams Association, industry associations Confindustria and FIEG, a local university, a political think tank, an America's Cup sailboat racing team, the 1990 World Cup of soccer and a high-speed train network. Recent reports have linked him to ailing Italian airline Alitalia, whose leadership he could very well assume, while earlier reports suggested he could run for prime minister.

By Noah Joseph