A partner at McKinsey was arrested Wednesday after being charged with insider trading on a Goldman Sachs deal with finance and technology lender GreenSky.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said in a complaint that Puneet Dikshit used his knowledge of Goldman Sachs’ planned takeover to buy call options before the deal was announced, resulting in roughly $450,000 in profits.
“We allege that Dikshit breached duties to his employer and his client by misusing their confidential information for his own financial gain,” Joseph G. Sansone, chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s Market Abuse Unit, said in a statement. “Thanks to our trading analysis tools, we were able to move swiftly to hold him accountable for his actions and protect the fairness of our securities market.”
Dikshit faces two counts of securities fraud, each with a maximum sentence of 20 years, the Department of Justice said in a press release.
Dikshit was arrested Wednesday and is expected to appear in court Wednesday afternoon.
“This breach of duties to his firm and its investment bank client — and violation of the law — allegedly reaped the defendant nearly half a million dollars in illegal profits. Now Puneet Dikshit has been charged with serious felonies for his alleged conduct,” Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in the statement.
McKinsey fired Dikshit on Wednesday, CNBC reported.
“We have terminated the employment of a partner for a gross violation of our policies and code of conduct,” a McKinsey spokesperson told CNBC. “We have zero tolerance for the appalling behavior described in the complaint, and we will continue cooperating with the authorities.”
Additionally, Goldman Sachs said it was “deeply disappointed by the insider trading allegations” and will cooperate with the investigation, a spokesperson told CNBC.
Mckinsey and Dikshit’s lawyers at Kramer Levin did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comments.
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