The vagaries of print deadlines can produce odd results. On Wednesday morning in New York, I concluded my column on McKinsey by writing that the firm had better hope that no “third man” came to light in the insider trading scandal.

Lo and behold, on Wednesday afternoon, the prosecutor in the trial in Manhattan of Raj Rajaratnam, the former Galleon Group hedge fund manager, said in his opening statement that Mr Rajaratnam had talked of there being just such a figure inside McKinsey. This is Kara Scannell’s report from the FT:

Jonathan Streeter, a federal prosecutor, told the jury that they would hear a recording of a phone conversation Mr Rajaratnam had with his brother “talking about plotting to get inside information from a consultant at McKinsey”. He said Mr Rajaratnam tried to get the person, described by the hedge fund trader as “dirty”, to “play ball” by possibly placing the person’s wife on the Galleon payroll.

Continue reading: “McKinsey’s third man allegedly appears”