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The former head of the Investment Board of the Canada Pension Plan joins a venture capital group based in Singapore, in his first role since leaving the fund after his decision to fly to the Middle East to receive a Covid-19 vaccine and provoked a national reaction.
Mark Machin, who resigned as executive director of the $ 356 billion fund in February, he will join the board of Serendipity Capital on August 1st.
Serendipity, a venture capital group founded in 2020, invests in financial services, technology and climate-focused businesses and has come to the US to raise up to $ 250 million from an Asia-centric Spac.
“All travel must end,” he wrote in an email to CPPIB staff and seen by the Financial Times. “It has been said that it is better to travel well than to arrive. And we’ve traveled well. ”Machin’s tenure in the background officially ended last Tuesday.
Machin personally traveled to the UAE to get a Covid-19 vaccine in February, a period of strict travel controls in Canada. The trip sparked outrage, including a reprimand from Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s finance minister. “Canadians place their trust in the CPPIB and expect it to remain at a higher level,” he said at the time.
Canada’s largest pension fund has produced average annual returns of 11% since Machin took the helm five years ago, raising total assets from $ 280 billion to nearly $ 500 billion.
The transfer of the financier to Asia follows a stage of almost a decade in various roles at CPPIB and marks a return to the region where he spent much of his career.
Machin trained as a physician before joining Goldman Sachs, working most of his two decades at the bank in Asia, where he became head of investment banking and vice president of the former Japan in Asia.
He left Goldman in 2012 for CPPIB, which manages investments in the Canada Pension Plan, a pillar of the country’s retirement system with more than 20 million taxpayers.
Machin will act as non-executive director of Serendipity and “help drive the company’s strategy and governance,” said Robert Jesudason, executive director.
Serendipity has invested in companies such as Cambridge-based Quantum Computing in the UK, which will soon form a joint venture with the quantum computing business of Honeywell, the US conglomerate, as well as in the consulting and investment company in climate change Pollination.
“Clearly [Machin] he brings enormous experience in investment management and understands the trends of this industry, ”said Jesudason, adding that Machin also“ brings deep Asia-Pacific relations and prospects ”.
Singapore has invested heavily in positioning itself as the technology and start-up center of Southeast Asia, attracting a growing number of investors. According to the government, the city state is home to more than “200 venture capitalists” and accounts for most of Southeast Asia’s risk investments.
Investors invested $ 5.5 billion ($ 4.1 billion) in emerging Singapore-based companies in 2020, nearly three times the amount invested five years ago.
Additional reports from Stefania Palma in Singapore
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