Primary Global Research

Founded in 2003 by former Intel Corp. manager Unni Narayanan, Primary Global is at the center of an ongoing Justice Department insider-trading crackdown on the sale of privileged information that could affect stock prices. Primary Global is in the business of "expert networking" — matching outside consultants, primarily employees of public companies, with hedge fund analysts and other money managers who pay hundreds of dollars an hour for access to their knowledge. Federal prosecutors have filed criminal charges against eight people with connections to Primary Global: three employees and five consultants that the company allegedly paid to disclose secrets about publicly traded companies, many of them well-known technology firms. Primary Global executives paid insiders at companies such as Dell Inc., Advanced Micro Devices and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. to divulge secrets to the company's hedge fund clients, prosecutors allege. The company's headquarters are in a three-story office building on El Camino Real, a major thoroughfare that bisects tech hubs such as Palo Alto, Mountain View and Menlo Park.