CPP chief exits after flouting travel advice with vaccine trip to UAE

Mark Machin quit as head of Canada Pension Plan Investment Board after he went to the United Arab Emirates and received a COVID -19 vaccine, defying guidance from Justin Trudeau's government to avoid international travel.

Machin resigned as chief executive officer after discussions with the board on Thursday evening, the $476-billion pension fund said in a statement Friday morning. John Graham, the fund's global head of credit investments, was named to replace him as CEO.

Canada's largest pension fund was thrown into crisis mode Thursday evening when the Wall Street Journal reported Machin's travel to Dubai. He earned a rebuke from the office of Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, who rarely comments on CPPIB matters in order to protect the fund's political independence.

Although leaving the country isn't illegal, Trudeau and his ministers have repeatedly warned residents not to do it and imposed strict rules to discourage international trips.

It isn't clear how Machin, a former Goldman Sachs executive who's in his mid-50s, could have arranged to receive the vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc. and Biontech SE in Dubai, where officially it's available only to people over 60, as well as those with chronic diseases or disabilities and frontline workers.

Government policy is to avoid interfering in CPPIB'S affairs. But under the circumstances, Freeland may have had little choice but to speak out. Canadians are growing impatient with the pace of the vaccine rollout, which has been the slowest among Group of Seven countries except Japan.

“It's not so much that he took a trip to the UAE, it's that he is perceived to have used his influence as the CEO of one of the largest sovereign pension funds in the world to get a vaccination,” former finance minister Joe Oliver said in an interview with BNN Bloomberg Television.

In selecting Graham to replace Machin, the board has chosen a low-profile CPPIB veteran who joined the fund in 2008 after a stint at Xerox. He has worked in its total portfolio management and private investment groups before taking charge of a team responsible for credit investments.

Reuters news agency reported, citing sources, that Machin sent an internal memo to CPPIB staff acknowledging that he took a personal trip and was in Dubai for a number of reasons, some of which were “deeply personal.”