Atticus Capital
Atticus Capital: The Hockey Player Who Built a $20 Billion Hedge Fund
Timothy Barakett could have been an ice hockey hall of famer. Instead, he became a billionaire - building a $20 billion AUM event-driven / activist hedge fund and earning himself $700 million and $750 million in 2006 and 2007, respectively.
A Canadian kid from Montreal who earned a hockey scholarship to Harvard, scored 79 goals his senior year, Barakett played for the Canadian national team, and got drafted by the New Jersey Devils - most people in his shoes lace up and play.
Barakett said no. He played pro hockey in Switzerland for a stretch, lost a front tooth somewhere along the way, and then walked away from the ice entirely to get his MBA at Harvard Business School in 1993.
That pivot set everything in motion.
After HBS, Barakett cut his teeth in risk arbitrage as a Managing Director at Junction Advisors and dabbled in venture investing at Battery Ventures.
By 1995, he was ready to start his own shop. He named it Atticus Capital — after Atticus Finch, the lawyer in To Kill a Mockingbird.
In this article, we dive into how Atticus grew to a $20 billion AUM activist fund, the high-profile campaigns, the fall, and what happened to the alumni who went to found their own funds.
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