On a sunny Friday afternoon in June 2003, Rajat Gupta was greeted at his waterfront home in Westport, Connecticut, by scores of his McKinsey & Co partners. They had come from London, Frankfurt, New Delhi and other cities around the world -- and brought along an elephant, which they tethered on the front lawn.
Gupta was stepping down after nine years as managing director of the global consulting firm, and his colleagues were gathered to celebrate his tenure and wish him the best in the next phase of his career.
They offered champagne toasts and took photos of Gupta, standing next to the elephant, which was draped in a brightly colored shawl called a jhool. The decorated elephant represented the Hindu god Ganesh, who bestows good fortune on new ventures. Gupta smiled as he rested his arm on its trunk, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its July issue.
Today, some of those same people say they’re stunned by what they’ve since learned about Gupta. In March, the US Securities and Exchange Commission filed an administrative order against him saying that he had passed confidential information to hedge fund billionaire Raj Rajaratnam, the central figure in the biggest crackdown on insider trading in US history.
Rajaratnam was convicted on 14 counts of conspiracy and securities fraud on May 11 and could face 19 years in prison, pending his July 29 sentencing in federal court.
Government wiretaps and phone records show that Gupta called Rajaratnam nine times in 2008 and 2009, giving the hedge fund manager information to make trades for his New York-based Galleon Group LLC.
Gupta, 62, who divides his time between his Connecticut home, a Manhattan apartment and a Florida getaway, has lived a double life. For 34 years until 2007, he worked for McKinsey, including nine years as the top executive of one of the world’s most trusted and prestigious consulting firms.
He was the confidant of chief executive officers such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc’s Lloyd Blankfein and Procter & Gamble Co’s former head
A G Lafley. Gupta sat on the boards of both of those companies — and he was a director at four other publicly traded corporations.
As a philanthropist, Gupta raised millions of dollars for education and health care, especially in India where he was born and to which he wanted to give back. He’s done charitable work with Microsoft Corp co-founder Bill Gates, former US President Bill Clinton and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Friends describe him as brilliant and humble.
