Atticus Funds - Event driven fund

Implosion - 2009-08-11

This is a confirmation of an implosion that likely happened effective some months ago. Today Barakett has announced that the majority of the outfit will be shut down, and he will be quitting to focus on family and "philanthropic activities" (the usual rigamarole).

However, we have the story that Atticus went from ailing to infighting to implosion --

According to two fund-of-funds investors, Barakett and his partner David Slager began fighting over investment strategies last summer. The tussle began when Barakett set up a side-pocket fund for Atticus' investment in Deutsche Boerse, a move investors didn't vote on nor from which did they have the ability to redeem. That caused one fund-of-funds investor to pull his firm's large investment out last fall and warn others he didn't think Barakett could turn his lagging fund around.

Atticus was $20B in size at peak (2007) overall. It had atrophied to $14B by July 2008. At the beginning of 2008, Global had about $8.5B of assets; as of closure it was down to $3.5B.

The European Fund, managed by Slager, will continue. It has $1.2B of assets remaining.

Ailing - 2008-09-04

Things could hardly be going well when you're having to deny liquidation rumors, and Atticus Capital, an event driven fund, has been doing just that this past week. According to the Reuters article:

Atticus's two main hedge funds have been hit with losses of between 25 percent and 32 percent this year through August, but investors are largely sticking with it, according to unnamed investors cited by the Journal.

Stocks the Wall Street Journal said Atticus held in recent months, including Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp, Union Pacific Corp and MasterCard Inc, fell 3.7 percent, 6 percent and 5.9 percent, respectively, amid a broad market sell-off. ...

... Investors have sought redemptions for the end of September for less than 10 percent of Atticus' capital, Tim Barakett, its founder, told the Journal, adding its flagship fund had seen redemptions accounting for just 3 percent of its capital.

FT Alphaville elaborates on the above percentages using the raw dollars involved noting that, "Atticus had about $14bn under management at the end of July, down from a peak of more than $20bn last year."

But as Atticus assures us, they aren't liquidating! At least not intentionally, anyway.

We'll be keeping an eye on Atticus Capital. Please let us know if you have any additional information regarding their continued status with regard to investment activities or investor redemptions.