Atticus nixes operations.(Atticus Capital)(Brief article)

It's not clear what Atticus Capital, the hedge fund that announced it was closing the bulk of its operations, will do with offices it leases at the General Motors Building.

Last week the firm's founder Timothy Barakett announced that he was unwinding the two large funds under his management and was stepping down from the company.

Atticus, according to reports, had a successful run in which Barakett grew the firm's initial $6 million of seed capital in the mid 1990s into a behemoth $20 billion in assets by 2008.

But like many firms of its ilk, it has been battered by problems in the financial sector and the global economic downturn. His two funds, Atticus Global, Ltd. and Atticus Global, LP, lost 27% of their value in 2008 and are down 6% so far this year according to a report the Wall Street Journal despite improving performance among competitors.

Flying high in 2006, Atticus bailed on a deal to expand its offices at Carnegie Hall Tower and instead signed a pricey lease for about 25,000 s/f on the 12th floor of the GM Building, a floor below where Barakett's brother Bret Barakett has his hedge fund, Tremblant Capital.

Sources at the time said rental rates for the Atticus deal started at $130 psf and climbed to $140 psf over the life of the 10-year lease. A source said that Atticus has spread word that it has no plans to give up the space. But "they all say that" the source said, indicating that the building's landlord, Boston Properties, should be skeptical.

Indeed, after taking heavy losses amid the brewing financial storm in early September of last year, Atticus denied rumors that it was going close funds.

"We've heard these rumors as well and they're not true," the Wall Street Journal quoted Tim Barakett as saying at the time. "We're certainly not liquidating. In fact we have a large net cash position and are looking for opportunities to invest capital."

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