Oct 21 (Reuters) - Elliott Management Corp, one the world's busiest activist investors, plans to open two new offices - one in Florida and one in Connecticut - to give staff more flexibility when the threat of COVID-19 ebbs and employees return to the office, a source said on Wednesday.

Paul Singer's $41 billion hedge fund will keep its office in midtown Manhattan and add two new locations in West Palm Beach, Florida and Greenwich, Connecticut at some point next year, the person who was not authorized to speak about the private firm's plans said. Elliott, which employs 466 people, also has offices in London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Menlo Park, California.

The move was driven largely by the pandemic which forced most Wall Street firms to shutter their headquarters in high-rise office buildings earlier this year and direct staff to work remotely. Some banks are moving staff back to the office while many hedge funds are sticking with their work-from-home plan.

Elliott is not expecting staff to return to any office before July 2021 and even then work arrangements would be flexible, the source said.

Bloomberg first reported that Elliott would open two additional locations.

Paul Singer plans to stay in the northeast while Jon Pollock, Singer's co-chief investment officer who has a home in Florida and has been working from there during the pandemic, will likely stay in Florida.

Even when Wall Street bankers and investors return in greater numbers, they will need to maintain distance which suggests that some firms may need more not less space, real estate experts said.

Even before Elliott's decision, Florida had become a draw for financial executives, including hedge fund managers Paul Tudor Jones and David Tepper and Carl Icahn, who have all moved south to Florida, a state which boasts lower taxes.

(Reporting by C Nivedita in Bengaluru and Svea Herbst-Bayliss in Boston; Editing by Bernard Orr and Stephen Coates)