Mark Machin, the head of Canada’s largest pension fund, retired after traveling to the Middle East and receiving the Covid-19 vaccine, which caused a setback.
In a statement, the Canada Board of Directors’ Investment Board said Machin had traveled 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 night, means a quick exit from a $ 356 billion pension fund that is a key part of Canada’s retirement system for public workers and a global financial heavyweight that played a role in transactions, including Buyout of the US department store Neiman Marcus in 2005.
Machin, a former Goldman Sachs investment banker in his mid-50s who has led CPPIB since 2016, did not immediately respond to an email request.
The announcement of his trip, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, has caused outrage in Canada, where many elderly and vulnerable people are still waiting for the vaccine.
CPPIB, which manages about $ 450 billion in assets, paid tribute to Machin’s leadership and announced another CEO, John Graham, as his successor.
Wealthy individuals have arrived in the UAE in recent months to take advantage of an emerging gray market for vaccines, people said.
Some paid about thousands of dollars to get their stab. Government officials also offer vaccinations to some non-residents. For example, UAE Team Emirates, the UAE’s professional cycling team, got a break in Abu Dhabi in January.
The official vaccination program is only widely available to residents who are vaccinated for free. The UAE delivered the second largest number of doses in the world, about 59 percent and just behind Israel.
Authorities in Dubai have fired BioNTech / Pfizer and Oxford / AstraZeneca. Many more doses of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine have been provided by Abu Dhabi and federal health authorities in all seven emirates in the UAE.