While the head of El Paso Pipeline Partners plans to step down after his company is acquired by Kinder Morgan, he won't go home empty handed.

CEO Douglas Foshee is eligible to walk away with a $95 million exit package after the company is officially taken over, with $69 million of the package to come from 4.27 million in stock options given to the CEO during his eight year tenure at the head of the company, The Wall Street Journal reported.

In 2010, Foshee, 51 years old, made $8,453,634 in total compensation. Pay records compiled by Forbes showed that he received slightly over $1 million in base pay, about $2.5 million in restricted stock awards and a little over $2.3 million in options awards. Foshess also received other compensation through a non-equity incentive plan and deferred compensation earnings.

Before signing on with a company, executives frequently negotiate a severance package, which usually includes a payout in the cases of mergers and acquisitions.

Kinder Morgan announced Sunday that they plan to buy El Paso Corp. in a $21 billion deal to create the largest natural gas pipeline in the United States. The deal has been called one of the largest energy mergers in history, and The Daily Mail noted that this deal, if approved, would be the second largest M&A transaction this year, after AT&T's $39 billion deal to buy Deutsch Telekom's T-Mobile USA.

Write to Samuel Weigley at s.weigley@ibtimes.com.