The investment board of the Canada Pension Plan accepted the resignation of CEO Mark Machin, a day after The Wall Street Journal reported that he had traveled to the United Arab Emirates and received a vaccination against Covid-19 there.
CPPIB, Canada’s largest pension fund and one of the world’s largest institutional investors, said John Graham would replace Mr Machin as chief executive with immediate effect. Mr. Graham, CEO, has been with the fund for a decade and was previously the global head of credit investment.
Mr. Machin, Investment Banker Goldman Sachs Group Inc. for two decades, he made the trip despite Canadian government advice against pandemic travel and in the midst of one of the slowest vaccine launches in the West.
The CPPIB is a crown corporation, which means that it is governed independently of the federal government, but it is the administrator of the pension obligations that are mandated by the government. Board members are selected by the Ministry of Finance. Katherine Cuplinskas, a spokeswoman for Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, said the minister spoke to the CPPIB board on Thursday evening about Mr Machin’s trip to make it “clear that Canadians trust the CPPIB and expect it to be maintained to a higher standard. ”
“We are very disappointed with this disturbing situation and support the swift action taken by the Management Board,” said Ms Cuplinskas.
Mr Machin did not comment when contacted by Jurnal by telephone on Friday. A CPPIB spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Mr Machin’s trip came as a surprise to many in the pension fund, and his resignation added a sense of shock, according to someone familiar with the matter. The global nature of the fund’s workforce has had a domino effect on calls and emails. The pension fund had more than 1,800 employees in nine offices, from Toronto to New York to London and Mumbai in mid-2020. Many of those employees still work from home.
On Thursday, the Journal reported that Mr. Machin, 54, received a Covid-19 vaccine shot in the United Arab Emirates, in front of millions of Canadians waiting for one at home.
There is no evidence that Mr Machin, a British citizen, violated any law to secure his dose. The Canadian government has asked residents to avoid traveling abroad, but has not banned it. Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates has said it distributes vaccines to residents, a name that foreigners can obtain through activities such as investing, buying property or setting up a local company. There is no evidence that Mr Machin is a resident.
The UAE has made exceptions to its residency requirements. In January, the UAE-sponsored cycling team that won the 2020 Tour de France – a group of about 60 cyclists and mostly non-resident staff – received doses of Chinese-made vaccine in Abu Dhabi.
The United Arab Emirates, a federation of seven emirates that includes the Dubai shopping center, has surpassed almost every country in the world with an ambitious vaccination campaign.
As head of the CPPIB, Mr Machin has been responsible for overseeing the money allocated to retirement for the approximately 20 million Canadians who contribute to the country’s public pension plan.
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The Canadian fund in March 2020 held stakes in several companies in the United Arab Emirates, including Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank PJSC and Emirates Telecommunications Group Co. PJSC, according to the fund’s annual information on foreign shares. Last year, the fund invested in Kuaishou Technology’s $ 5.4 billion equity debut,
a Chinese video streaming startup, along with the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, a major sovereignty fund in the United Arab Emirates.
Mr. Machin’s vaccination comes amid outrage from other parts of the world, in cases where rich or well-connected people have managed to cross the vaccine line. Most of the world is carefully analyzing the doses to give priority to the most vulnerable or those on the front line fighting the pandemic.
In Peru, dozens of government advisers, lobby groups, cabinet ministers and people connected to them, and the former president and his family, secretly received the vaccines last year – triggering a scandal there now called the Vaccine Gate. Last month, Florida restricted vaccines to those who could prove residency. Officials there have offered to shoot anyone over the age of 65, but have become concerned that the state is becoming an attraction for vaccine tourism. Many Canadians, in particular, have sought to rent planes for quick trips to Florida for vaccines.
Vaccines are particularly rare in Canada. About 4% of the Canadian population received at least one dose, compared to 20% in the US, according to a tracker from Oxford University.
Mr. Machin has been the executive director of the Toronto Pension Fund since June 2016. He previously oversaw its international operations. Prior to his financial career, he qualified as a doctor in the UK after studying at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
As highly transmissible coronavirus variants travel the world, scientists are struggling to understand why these new versions of the virus are spreading faster and what this could mean for vaccination efforts. New research says the key may be the spike protein, which gives the coronavirus an unmistakable shape. Illustration: Nick Collingwood / WSJ
Write to Jenny Strasburg at [email protected] and Jacquie McNish at [email protected]
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