Capital Raising Specialist,
Corporate Advisor,
Director & Investor

Christopher Swasbrook is the Founder and a Director of Elevation Capital Funds Management Limited and Co-Founder and Director of NZX-listed New Zealand Rural Land Company. He is also Chair of the Auckland Future Fund, Executive Chairman of McCashin’s Brewery and a Director of Merx Funds Management Limited.

Previously, he was Chair of NZX-listed Allied Farmers, Chair of NZX-listed Bethunes Investments (formerly Mowbray Collectables, now MOVe Logistics), Director of NZX-listed Satara Co-Operative Group, and Chairman of unlisted investment company Bethunes Investments, Director of Ruapehu Alpine Lifts and a Director of SwimTastic, a large-scale learn-to-swim operator in New Zealand. 

Early in his financial markets career, Mr Swasbrook became a Foundation Broker of the New Zealand Exchange (NZX) after having been a Full Member of the New Zealand Stock Exchange (NZSE). He became Partner and Co-Head of Institutional Equities at Goldman Sachs JBWere (NZ) in 2003.

Mr Swasbrook has had a number of financial market highlights across his career, including the largest NZX Initial Public Offering (IPO) for a company with no operating assets at the time of the offering - the New Zealand Rural Land Company, which raised $75.0 million in December 2020. In 2017, he was a key player in the largest reverse listing transaction in the NZX’s history when NZX-listed Bethunes Investments (formerly Mowbray Collectables) acquired Transport Investments and TIL Logistics (now MOVe Logistics) in a $200 million transaction. He has also been involved in a number of activist investor/investment situations in New Zealand and Australia over his career. He is widely consulted and offers advice in such situations today. While his focus across public and private markets remains broad, he is a specialist in advising and forming investment vehicles to capitalise on specific investment opportunities.

Mr Swasbrook is currently a Board Member of the Financial Markets Authority (FMA), having previously served as a Member of the NZX Listing Subcommittee (2008-2023) and a Member of the New Zealand Markets Disciplinary Tribunal (2013-2023).

Since graduating from the University of Auckland with a Bachelor of Commerce (Economics) in 1996, he has undertaken Executive Education courses at Columbia University (New York), New York University (NYU), the London School of Economics (LSE) and the Harvard Kennedy School in Boston, Massachusetts. 

Born in Auckland, New Zealand, he has been a long-time supporter of business and arts communities. He is an Inaugural Member and current Chair of the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki Advisory Board and the Chair of The Helen Clark Foundation, a non-partisan public and economic policy research institute.