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 had received the Covid-19 vaccine.
The CPPIB, Canada’s largest pension fund and one of the world’s largest institutional investors, said John Graham would replace Mr. Machin as CEO, with immediate effectiveness. Mr. Graham, senior CEO, has been with the fund for a decade and was previously the global head of credit investments.
Machin, an investment banker of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. for two decades, he made the trip despite advice from the Canadian government against travel during the pandemic and amid one of the slowest vaccine launches in the West.
CPPIB is a crown corporation, that is, it is governed independently of the federal government, but it is the administrator of the pension obligations that are bound by the government. Board members are selected by the finance ministry. Katherine Cuplinskas, spokeswoman for Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, said the minister spoke to the CPPIB board on Thursday about Mr Machin’s trip to make it clear that Canadians place their trust in the CPPIB and hope it stays in place. a higher level. “.
“We are very disappointed by this worrying situation and support the swift actions of the Board of Directors,” Ms. Cuplinskas.
Machin made no comment when the newspaper reached him by phone in the Journal. A CPPIB spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Mr Machin’s trip came as a surprise to many within the pension fund and his resignation added to a sense of shock, according to a person familiar with the matter. The global nature of the background template caused a domino effect of calls and emails. The pension fund had more than 1,800 employees in nine offices, from Toronto to New York, through London and Mumbai, by mid-2020. Many of these employees continue to work from home.
On Thursday, the newspaper reported that Mr. Machin, 54, received a vaccine against Covid-19 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 guarantee his dose. The Canadian government has urged residents to avoid traveling abroad, but has not banned it. Meanwhile, the UAE has said it distributes vaccines to residents, a designation that foreigners can obtain through activities such as investing, buying property or setting up a local business. There is no evidence that Mr. Machin is a resident.
The United Arab Emirates 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 a Chinese-made vaccine in Abu Dhabi.
The United Arab Emirates, a federation of seven emirates that includes the Dubai Mall, has surpassed almost every country in the world with an ambitious vaccination campaign.
As head of the CPPIB, Mr. Machin was responsible for overseeing the retirement money of nearly 20 million Canadians who contribute to the country’s public pension plan.
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The Canadian fund in March 2020 had stakes in several UAE companies, including Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank companies PJSC and Emirates Telecommunications Group Co. PJSC, according to the fund’s annual disclosures on foreign shares. Last year, the fund invested in Kuaishou Technology’s $ 5.4 billion stock debut,
a Chinese video streaming startup, along with the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, a large sovereign wealth fund of the United Arab Emirates.
Mr. Machin’s vaccination comes amid outrage in other parts of the world in cases where rich or well-connected people have been able to jump the vaccine line. Most of the world is carefully measuring doses to prioritize the most vulnerable or those at the forefront of fighting the pandemic.
In Peru, dozens of government consultants, pressure groups, cabinet ministers and people related to them, and the former president and his family, secretly received vaccines last year, prompting a scandal now called the Porta de the Vaccine. Last month, Florida restricted vaccines to those who could prove their residency. Officials there offered the shot to anyone over the age of 65, but worried that the state would become a raffle for vaccine tourism. Many Canadians, in particular, have been looking to rent planes for quick round trips to Florida to get vaccines.
Vaccines are particularly scarce in Canada. About 4% of the Canadian population has received at least one dose, compared to 20% in the US, according to a Oxford University tracker.
Machin has been the chief executive of the Toronto-based 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.
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Write to Jenny Strasburg at [email protected] and Jacquie McNish at [email protected]
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