Puneet Dikshit
Elizabeth Williams
A former McKinsey partner has plead guilty to securities fraud for bets he made ahead of Goldman Sachs‘ $2.2 billion acquisition of fintech lender GreenSky.
Puneet Dikshit, 40, had been charged with insider trading last month. He was accused of using information gained in his role advising Goldman on the deal to place out-of-the money call option bets two days before the acquisition was announced, netting more than $450,000 in gains.
“Barely a month after he was charged, Puneet Dikshit admitted in court today that he used his access to material nonpublic information about a pending acquisition of GreenSky, Inc., to trade in GreenSky call options,” Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Wednesday in a statement.
Dikshit plead guilty to one count of securities fraud, which brings a maximum prison sentence of 20 years. He is set to be sentenced on March 30.
The case was handled by the Justice Department’s securities and commodities fraud task force with help from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In September, CNBC was the first to report that suspicious trades were made in GreenSky options ahead of the deal.
This story is developing. Please check back for updates.