It is remarkable the way that McKinsey goes from train wreck to train wreck yet manages to depict itself as some sort of Corporate America Zelig: ever on the scene but not doing much of anything in particular. This is despite the fact (for instance) that McKinsey was singularly responsible for the biggest value destroying deal of all time, save maybe Bayer’s purchase of Monsanto, which was the Time Warner acquisition of AOL. McKinsey pitched AOL to the Time Warner board five times and the board had the spine to reject it only four times.
Or how about the Enron bankruptcy? McKinsey was all over Enron every bit as much as Arthur Andersen had been, but didn’t leave fingerprints at the crime scene like signing off on Enron’s financials…even thought it was widely acknowledged as having approved of the accounting treatment that sank Arthur Andersen.