A Dim Future for the Smaller Firm?

“The only way you can get around a lot of it is to completely outsource your investment management process,” he argues. There’s another key area where he thinks the smaller shop is at a disadvantage: staying current on technology. Legend has a part-time information specialist who works three days a week for the firm; a staff IT coordinator who “spends about a third of her time” on keeping the tech tools current, along with an intern and an assistant advisor who has “tremendous experience in working on programs and getting them to talk to each other.” In fact, he says Legend spends so much time on technology, that “You need some size to afford that. I mean, a Bloomberg terminal costs $20-something thousand dollars!”