The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board accepted the resignation of Chief Executive Mark Machin, a day after The Wall Street Journal reported that he had traveled to the United Arab Emirates and received the Covid-19 vaccine there.
CPPIB, Canada’s largest pension fund and one of the world’s largest institutional investors, said John Graham will replace Machin as CEO, with immediate effect. Mr. Graham, a senior managing director, has been in the fund for a decade and was previously the global head of credit investments.
Machin, an investment banker at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. for two decades, made the trip despite Canadian government advice against travel during the pandemic and amid one of the slowest vaccine launches in the West.
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 imposed by the government. Board members are selected by the finance ministry. Katherine Cuplinskas, spokesman for Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, said the minister spoke with the CPPIB board on Thursday night about Machin’s trip to make it “clear that Canadians trust the CPPIB and expect it to be kept in a higher standard. ”
“We are very disappointed with this worrying situation and we support the swift action taken by the Board of Directors,” said Ms. Cuplinskas.
Machin made no comment when contacted by telephone by the Journal on Friday. A CPPIB spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Machin’s trip was a surprise to many within the pension fund and his resignation was added to a feeling of shock, according to a person familiar with the matter. The global nature of the fund’s workforce has 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, London and Mumbai, in mid-2020. Many of these employees still work from home.
On Thursday, the Journal reported that Machin, 54, was vaccinated with the Covid-19 vaccine in the United Arab Emirates, ahead of millions of Canadians waiting for one at home.
There is no evidence that Mr. Machin, a British citizen, broke any law to guarantee his dose. The Canadian government has asked residents to avoid traveling abroad, but has not banned them. The United Arab Emirates, for its part, said that they are distributing vaccines to residents, a designation that foreigners can obtain through activities such as investments, buying real estate or starting a local company. There is no evidence that Mr. Machin is a resident.
The UAE made exceptions to the 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 shopping center, has overtaken almost every country in the world with an ambitious vaccination campaign.
As head of CPPIB, Mr. Machin was responsible for overseeing the retirement money of about 20 million Canadians who contribute to the country’s public pension plan.
STAY INFORMED
Receive a coronavirus briefing six days a week and a weekly health newsletter when the crisis passes: Sign up here.
The Canadian fund in March 2020 held stakes in several UAE companies, including Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank PJSC and Emirates Telecommunications Group Co. PJSC, according to the annual disclosures of the foreign equity fund. Last year, the fund invested in its debut in $ 5.4 billion shares of Kuaishou Technology,
a Chinese video streaming startup, alongside the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, a major UAE sovereign wealth fund.
Machin’s vaccination comes amid the furor in other parts of the world, where wealthy or well-connected people have been able to prepare for a vaccine. Most of the world is carefully distributing doses to prioritize the most vulnerable or those on the frontline who are fighting the pandemic.
In Peru, dozens of government consultants, lobbyists, ministers and people connected to them, in addition to the former president and his family, received secret vaccines last year – triggering a scandal there now called Vaccine Gate. Last month, Florida restricted vaccines to those who provided proof of residence. Local authorities offered the injection to anyone over the age of 65, but were concerned that the state was becoming an attraction for vaccine tourism. Many Canadians, in particular, are looking for charter jets for quick round trips to Florida for vaccinations.
Vaccines are particularly scarce in Canada. About 4% of the Canadian population has received at least one dose, compared with 20% in the United States, according to an Oxford University tracker.
Mr. Machin has been the chief executive of the Toronto-based pension fund since June 2016. Previously, he oversaw its international operations. Before his career in finance, he qualified as a doctor in the UK after studying at Oxford and Cambridge universities.
As highly transmissible coronavirus variants spread around the world, scientists are racing to understand why these new versions of the virus are spreading more quickly and what this could mean for vaccine efforts. New research says the key may be the peak protein, which gives coronavirus its unmistakable shape. Illustration: Nick Collingwood / WSJ
Write to Jenny Strasburg at [email protected] and Jacquie McNish at [email protected]
Copyright © 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8