McKinsey reached its largest settlement yet over its role in the opioid crisis, according to reports of federal court filings made last week, and a former senior partner agreed to plead guilty to deleting documents to hide McKinsey’s involvement.

McKinsey will pay $650 million to settle the federal government’s criminal and civil cases over the firm’s role in helping Purdue Pharma and other opioid makers more aggressively push the powerful painkillers. The newest federal settlement puts McKinsey’s total agreed-to payments from opioid-related settlements above $1.5 billion.

The Justice Department will defer prosecution and eventually drop the case entirely if McKinsey upholds its side of the settlement. In addition to paying $650 million over five years, the firm must “improve its compliance practices to detect illegal activity and submit to oversight from the DOJ and US Department of Health and Human Services inspector general’s office,” CNN reported.

McKinsey will also “enter into a ‘corporate integrity’ agreement with the [Health and Human Services] inspector general’s office,” according to CNN.

Martin Elling, a former senior partner at McKinsey, will “plead guilty to obstruction of justice for deleting documents from his laptop after he became aware of investigations into Purdue Pharma,” the AP reported.

For more on McKinsey’s fines, click here.—GD

How many $1.50 hot dogs would Costco have to sell to get by on frankfurters alone?

That’s a question we’ll (probably) never get answered. But in Costco’s latest earnings call, CFO Gary Millerchip was talking very specifically about meat.

First, the basics: For Q1 2025, Costco’s net income climbed to $1.8 billion, up from $1.6 billion in Q1 last year. Revenue also jumped to $62.2 billion, a fair leap from $57.8 billion a year ago.

Now, the beef: Costco customers are finally spending a bit more as inflation eases, the Wall Street Journal reported, though they’re selective about it—and they’re congregating at the lower and upper ends of the pricing spectrum. And that’s where meat comes in.

Millerchip said the company is “seeing what we think is a little bit of a shift from food away from home to food at home, and that’s certainly reflected in strong meat and produce sales that we’ve seen in our own business.”

Crucially, though, there’s a “bifurcation with the member,” he added, as some customers spend on “high-quality premium cuts” while others gravitate toward “those lower price per pound items across categories like poultry, cuts of beef and pork as well.”

This was a notable quarter for Costco with respect to membership. In September, the warehouse-club chain upped its annual membership fee for the first time since 2017. The company’s Q1 report was the first one since the fee hikes.

Click here to read more.—NP

Inflation, inflation, read all about it.

The Consumer Price Index rose 2.7% in the 12 months through November, a slightly larger increase than the month before, the Labor Department said last week.

Core prices (excluding food and energy costs, which fluctuate more significantly) climbed 3.3% for the year. That core reading was unchanged from the previous month, CNBC reported.

Inflation reached a 40-year high of 9.1% in 2022 (but you and everyone at your Thanksgiving dinner table already knew that). In the years since, the Federal Reserve has been aiming for 2% inflation. After finally hitting 2.4%—its lowest point in two years—in September, inflation ticked up again to 2.6% in October.

Part of the good news in last week’s report is that housing cost inflation, which has been one of the persistent factors keeping inflation high, finally moderated. Not that much, though: The shelter index still made up nearly 40% of the overall inflation increase.

While the annual inflation rate is still above the Fed’s 2% target, November’s figures will likely give the central bank permission to cut rates when it meets this week, many economists and analysts believe.

For more on the possibilities of a rate cut this week, click here.—NP