McKinsey Partner Charged With Insider Trading Over Fintech Deal

A partner at global management consulting firm McKinsey Consulting has been charged with insider trading over allegedly buying call options in a fintech startup company after learning it would be acquired by Goldman Sachs. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Puneet Dikshit, who in course of providing consulting services, learned of the impending acquisition and bought GreenSky call options that were due to expire just days after the acquisition announcement.

The SEC claims that Dikshit violated his firm’s policies by failing to pre-clear the purchases, which he later sold on the morning of the acquisition announcement, thus making a profit of more than $450,000. It alleges that the McKinsey Consulting partner violated s10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which makes it unlawful to “use or employ, in connection with the purchase or sale of any security” a “manipulative or deceptive device or contrivance in contravention of such rules and regulations as the [SEC] may prescribe.” 

The SEC’s Chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s Market Abuse Unit said the action was brought with the assistance of the agency’s trading analysis tools, which enabled the team to move swiftly. In addition to the SEC’s action, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York also announced criminal charges against Dikshit.