Small mutual firms have a friend in Lou Stanasolovich, CEO and president of Pittsburgh-based advisory firm Legend Financial Advisors.

Stanasolovich told The MFWire that what piques his interest are small, boutique style firms, that have smaller sized funds and are willing to close those funds at a very low level, usually under a billion dollars.

Mutual fund giants such as Fidelity need not knock on Stanasolovich's door; he said he very rarely uses their funds. One exception he pointed out is West Coast-based bond giant PIMCO.

By only using small asset mangers, Stanasolovich said he very rarely needs to worry about manager turnover. "Our managers usually don't leave as they often have a stake in the ownership of the fund shop," Stanasolovich said. If, on the rare occasion ,there is manager turnover in a fund he utilizes, Stanasolovich said that if the new manager is being brought in from outside the company, he will most likely pull out of the fund.

One thing a fund shop can do to drum up Stanasolovich 's interest is to present him with research. "The more research they (fund companies) have, the better," he said. Two fund shops high on Stanaslovich 's list, PIMCO and Minneapolis-based Leuthold Weeden Capital Management have a tremendous amount of research available to the public, he said.  

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