Almost overnight, the purchase price jumped nearly $1 billion. Fine said the higher payments involved “extraneous factors which in many cases are impossible to explain.”53 In fact, he added, “they are not explainable.” Another McKinsey senior partner was incredulous. “I’ve never heard that the price goes up after negotiations,”54 he said. “You have an offer on the table and the executive negotiates the price upwards?” McKinsey was not blameless in this fiasco. The firm had overestimated consumer demand for the locomotives, causing Transnet to buy overpriced locomotives that it didn’t need.55
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