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> a HUGE risk for practically no gain Eh? A few dropped words during a social dinner, or even a knowing glance, you call that a huge risk? And a hedge fund get

by FabHK 8y ago

> a HUGE risk for practically no gain Eh? A few dropped words during a social dinner, or even a knowing glance, you call that a huge risk? And a hedge fund getting (even only 1 bit of) information from some well-informed people, allowing them to adjust their position on a firm, can lead to substantial gains, obviously. > Most consultants won’t even know what other people on their team is working on, and most are in and out after 2 years. This is not about junior guys. > Hedge fund managers don’t coordinate with consultants. Well, yeah, officially, of course. But that's precisely what the article is about.

paganel 8y ago
> a HUGE risk for practically no gain The same thing happened in the Libor scandal, those involved took a very big risk for not such a big gain and look what that caused: a market worth hundreds of billions of dollars (if not more) being manipulated in exchange for stuff like Champaigne bottles and some fancy dinners out (all of the latter worth at most $10,000).
- gotocake 8y ago
  The LIBOR scandal was predicated on them using online chat rooms, instead of just the kind of proven “wink and a nod over drinks” that’s being alleged here. In essence, they took an even bigger risk than what is being described in this article, and as you say, for lesser rewards.
  - mruts 8y ago
    Things have changed a lot since 2012. Of course, we don't have information that we are not privy to, but I still think it's unlikely. I'm saying this as a finance professional, but of course, I really don't know what other people would do, but I know that my firm wouldn't traffic in something so high risk. Not because of some moral opposition of course, but just because the potential fines could potentially be an extinction event for the firm.
    - gotocake 8y ago
      I hope you’re right, but the skeptic in me says that people who commit crimes tend to do so thinking they won’t get caught. It’s the problem with the death penalty or any harsh regime of sentencing; the deterrence effect is nonexistent.
b_tterc_p 8y ago
I don’t disagree that there’s opportunity for bad actors. This exists for everyone. But the NYT is trying to imply with no evidence that there is a habitual firm policy of leveraging client secrets for insider trading at the firm’s hedge fund. That doesn’t make sense. If you’re going to commit fraud, you don’t do it in a fund to be allocated across thousands of partners, you do it for something that’s actually going to matter for you in some way. Like the guy who got caught. The only evidence of badness within this they could find was a pharma company invested in by an outside firm. The NYT has also released another article about why they’re writing these hit pieces. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/19/reader-center/mckinsey-hedge-fund-reporting-investigation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/19/reader-center/mckinsey-he... Basically it boils down to them having a hunch that a big private company is bad. And have they really found anything? No, not really. They just keep churning out pieces that say this could be bad if the firm has no internal controls though they can’t find anything to suggest it’s true, or one off studies that are linked to bad outcomes. Their reporting isn’t factually incorrect, but it’s being written with their own stated bias to find bad things. They’re not hearing leads and digging further. Given that this is true, their investigation has found basically nothing.

by FabHK 8y ago

paganel 8y ago

> a HUGE risk for practically no gain The same thing happened in the Libor scandal, those involved took a very big risk for not such a big gain and look what that caused: a market worth hundreds of billions of dollars (if not more) being manipulated in exchange for stuff like Champaigne bottles and some fancy dinners out (all of the latter worth at most $10,000).

gotocake 8y ago
The LIBOR scandal was predicated on them using online chat rooms, instead of just the kind of proven “wink and a nod over drinks” that’s being alleged here. In essence, they took an even bigger risk than what is being described in this article, and as you say, for lesser rewards.
- mruts 8y ago
  Things have changed a lot since 2012. Of course, we don't have information that we are not privy to, but I still think it's unlikely. I'm saying this as a finance professional, but of course, I really don't know what other people would do, but I know that my firm wouldn't traffic in something so high risk. Not because of some moral opposition of course, but just because the potential fines could potentially be an extinction event for the firm.
  - gotocake 8y ago
    I hope you’re right, but the skeptic in me says that people who commit crimes tend to do so thinking they won’t get caught. It’s the problem with the death penalty or any harsh regime of sentencing; the deterrence effect is nonexistent.

b_tterc_p 8y ago

I don’t disagree that there’s opportunity for bad actors. This exists for everyone. But the NYT is trying to imply with no evidence that there is a habitual firm policy of leveraging client secrets for insider trading at the firm’s hedge fund. That doesn’t make sense. If you’re going to commit fraud, you don’t do it in a fund to be allocated across thousands of partners, you do it for something that’s actually going to matter for you in some way. Like the guy who got caught. The only evidence of badness within this they could find was a pharma company invested in by an outside firm. The NYT has also released another article about why they’re writing these hit pieces. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/19/reader-center/mckinsey-hedge-fund-reporting-investigation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/19/reader-center/mckinsey-he... Basically it boils down to them having a hunch that a big private company is bad. And have they really found anything? No, not really. They just keep churning out pieces that say this could be bad if the firm has no internal controls though they can’t find anything to suggest it’s true, or one off studies that are linked to bad outcomes. Their reporting isn’t factually incorrect, but it’s being written with their own stated bias to find bad things. They’re not hearing leads and digging further. Given that this is true, their investigation has found basically nothing.