David Nish, the chief executive of Standard Life has said that the he expects the financial giant to benefit greatly form the on-going pension reforms.

The remarks came after the company recorded lower than expected sales during the third quarter of the year. Standard's long-term savings inflows increased 11 per cent to £2.8 billion, which is much lower than £3.5 billion expected by analysts. The total investment inflow was at £1.2 billion, which is about half of that level expected by analysts.

The Edinburgh-based Standard Life said that its profitability in the third quarter was impacted by institutional pension outflows as well as by a £300m cash fund movement in India. Mr Munro, who is behind the GARS multi-asset strategy that helped generate £30 billion and boosted the growth of Standard Life Investments and the group, left the company in August for rival firm Aviva. The company lost £1.6 billion from multi-asset funds during the same month.

Mr Nish said, "There will be an impact from Euan going, he is a great professional and we were sad to see him go but the team move on and the team's performance is good. There was still £1.1billion going into the funds, that is not an outflow."