McKinsey partner sentenced to 24 months for insider trading scheme

- ADVERTISEMENT -

On April 6, 2022, Puneet Dikshit, a former partner in McKinsey & Company, was sentenced to 24 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon. In addition to his prison sentence, Dikshit, 41, of New York, New York, was ordered to pay forfeiture in the amount of $455,017.

Dikshit pled guilty on December 15, 2021, to one count of securities fraud in connection with his scheme to commit insider trading based on material, non-public information regarding the upcoming public announcement that The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. – which DIKSHIT and McKinsey were advising – would be acquiring GreenSky, Inc.

According to the allegations in the Complaint and the Information, court filings, and statements made in public court proceedings outlined in a press release from Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York:

Between November 2019 and July 2020, and again between April 2021 and September 2021, Goldman Sachs, the investment bank, engaged McKinsey, the management consulting firm, to provide services related to the potential acquisition of GreenSky, a publicly traded financial technology company, by Goldman Sachs and the post-acquisition integration of GreenSky. Dikshit was one of the McKinsey partners leading these engagements.  In that role, he had access to material nonpublic information, which prosecutors said, he misappropriated and used to trade GreenSky call options.

Dikshit engaged in this trading between July 26 and September 15, 2021 – at the same time he was leading the McKinsey team that was advising Goldman Sachs about its potential acquisition of GreenSky.  At various times between July 26 and September 13, 2021, Dikshit purchased and sold relatively small numbers of GreenSky call options, which had expiration dates weeks or months from the time of purchase.  However, in the two days before the September 15, 2021, public announcement that Goldman Sachs would be acquiring GreenSky, Dikshit sold all of these longer-dated GreenSky call options and purchased approximately 2,500 out-of-the-money GreenSky call options that were due to expire just a few days later, on September 17, 2021.  After the deal to purchase GreenSky was announced on September 15, 2021, DIKSHIT sold these options and realized profits of approximately $450,000.