FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Allianz (DE:ALVG) is pursuing asset-liability matching for its insurance business in Britain and has no open positions against sterling, the chief financial officer of Europe's biggest insurer said on Wednesday.
"We keep our obligations and our investments almost entirely currency matched, so we therefore have made sure that we have no open positions against the pound," Dieter Wemmer told a conference call with journalists on the insurer's first-quarter earnings.
"Otherwise, I'd say you can't prepare (for Brexit) because if the outcome is 50/50, it's a pure bet on which side to prepare for, it's like a tossing a coin," he added.
Wemmer also said that should the UK vote to leave the European Union as a result of a referendum scheduled for June 23, it would create a technical challenge for asset managers to legally separate mutual funds domiciled in the UK, but the impact on the business itself would be less dramatic.