I don't think in this case McKinsey was necessarily bad for it's clients.
It may very well have simply done research on drugs for Valiant as requested. Valiant was making ultra-risky moves in buying up things it shouldn't have.
Even if there were 'insider moves' in the McKinsey fund (which I doubt but maybe it's true in some indirect way), it's easy to see independant investors somewhere else seeing that Valiant is doing some dumb things.
Goldman was involved in helping the Greek government clean up it's balance sheet in order to get into the Euro. It'd seem that in this case, it was the Greek government that likely hired Goldman due to their very prowess in 'doing whatever it takes' to get the job done. In this particular scenario, my hunch is that Goldman probably told Greek officials that the presentation of the information in such and such a way would likely cause problems, but 'the client' did it anyhow.
Also note that McKinsey in particular is not a highly centralized entity, it's almost like a 'franchise brand' with a lot of fairly independant entities that operate differently. Not exactly Subway sandwiches but it's not like Amazon either.
I'm not really defending GS or McKinsey, it's just that these things aren't black and white.
Maybe it's better to think of them as 'consiglieres' for the powers that be.
It may very well have simply done research on drugs for Valiant as requested. Valiant was making ultra-risky moves in buying up things it shouldn't have.
Even if there were 'insider moves' in the McKinsey fund (which I doubt but maybe it's true in some indirect way), it's easy to see independant investors somewhere else seeing that Valiant is doing some dumb things.
Goldman was involved in helping the Greek government clean up it's balance sheet in order to get into the Euro. It'd seem that in this case, it was the Greek government that likely hired Goldman due to their very prowess in 'doing whatever it takes' to get the job done. In this particular scenario, my hunch is that Goldman probably told Greek officials that the presentation of the information in such and such a way would likely cause problems, but 'the client' did it anyhow.
Also note that McKinsey in particular is not a highly centralized entity, it's almost like a 'franchise brand' with a lot of fairly independant entities that operate differently. Not exactly Subway sandwiches but it's not like Amazon either.
I'm not really defending GS or McKinsey, it's just that these things aren't black and white.
Maybe it's better to think of them as 'consiglieres' for the powers that be.