Update 2: Tom Christmann has negotiated to move forward as a freelance creative and will continue to work with/for Cliff Freeman.

— The agency has 15+ employees right now (not 9)
— The agency did not lose Barnes and Noble biz…it was never a roster client. CF&P did a 6-month project for Quamut, a small division of B&N and completed the project, as planned, in 2008. The relationship with Quamut was not expected to go further...and the agency is not pitching B&N business.

— CF&P is actively pitching new business

— The agency's "most profitable client" is still engaging in partnership with CF&P, which has no reason to believe the client is going anywhere

Update: A source tells us the B&N business has been gone for something like 6 months.

In what's been a rough month for New York agency Cliff Freeman, today brings word that ECD Tom Christmann, who came to the agency just more than a year ago, has apparently quit. We're told he resigned Monday, just a week after CEO Clayton Ruebensaall III resigned.

Reports are coming in that the last profitable piece of business the agency is working for may not be there at all indicating that the small (9 people, we're hearing) staff could soon be looking for work elsewhere. That is, unless Barnes & Noble pans out or some other business comes in.

We contacted sources at some of Christmann's old haunts, which include TAXI, BBDO, TBWA/Chiat/Day. He's grown pretty rapidly from an ACD up to the ECD role he manned at Cliff. Says a source, "My guess is he'll land on his feet somewhere, assuming the market allows."

He may already have something in the works, but Christmann didn't respond to an e-mail request for more info. Neither did the agency, by the time this story was published. More to come.

Cliff Freeman has had a spot of bad luck lately, losing Snapple, Bonefish Grill and their relationship with MDC Partners.

More: "Cliff Freeman & Partners CEO Clayton Ruebensaal Up and Quit"