Ex-Volkswagen head Winterkorn steps down from Porsche holding

Former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn, who resigned in the wake of the emissions cheating scandal, is stepping down as head of the group's Porsche SE holding at the end of the month, the Stuttgart-based goup said Saturday.

Winterkorn will hand over to Hans-Dieter Poetsch, who moves into the top job with Volkswagen's biggest shareholder from his current role as financial director.

Porsche SE is the investment arm of the Piech and Porsche families, who inherited the Volkswagen empire built up by Ferdinand Porsche.

Matthias Mueller, 62, formerly head of the group's luxury sports car maker Porsche, took over from Winterkorn as CEO three weeks ago after the latter resigned.

Winterkorn's position swiftly became untenable after it emerged Volkswagen had used cheat devices to rig pollution emissions in off-road tests.

The scandal broke on stunning revelations by US environmental authorities that the German carmaker had fitted 11 million of its diesel diesel cars with software capable of tricking emissions tests.

The scam is set to lead to billions of dollars of fines and more still in a stream of legal actions.