Head of Canada’s largest pension fund quits after Covid vaccine trip

Mark Machin, the head of Canada’s largest pension fund, has stepped down after he travelled to the Middle East and received the Covid-19 vaccine, sparking a backlash.

In a statement, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board said Machin had travelled to the United Arab Emirates in a personal capacity and “arranged to be vaccinated against Covid-19”.

His resignation, following discussions with the board on Thursday evening, marked a swift exit from a $356bn pension fund that is both a key part of Canada’s retirement system for public workers and a global financial heavyweight that has played a role in deals, including the 2005 buyout of US department store Neiman Marcus.

Machin, a former Goldman Sachs investment banker in his mid 50s who has led CPPIB since 2016, did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

Disclosure of his trip, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, triggered outrage in Canada, where many elderly and vulnerable people are still waiting for the vaccine.

CPPIB, which manages about CA$450bn ($356bn) of assets, paid tribute to Machin’s leadership and announced another senior executive, John Graham, as his successor.

Wealthy individuals have been arriving in the UAE over the past few months to take advantage of an emerging grey market in vaccines, people briefed on the matter said.

Some have been paying around several thousand dollars to get their jab. Government officials have also been offering vaccines to some non-residents. For example, UAE Team Emirates, the UAE’s professional cycling team, in January received a jab in Abu Dhabi.

The official vaccination programme is only generally available to residents, who are inoculated for free. The UAE has delivered the second largest number of doses in the world, at around 59 per cent and only behind Israel.

The Dubai authorities have been administering the BioNTech/Pfizer and Oxford/AstraZeneca jabs. Far more doses of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine have been provided by Abu Dhabi and federal health authorities across all seven emirates in the UAE.