Wednesday 1 April 2026
On Wednesday 18 March, the Phillips Society were delighted to host Chris Marshall (Peart, 1984-88), the co-founder of Waterman Capital, one of New Zealand’s leading private equity firms. He shared a multitude of topics, ranging from his early life to challenges he had faced.
Chris is a former student of the college himself, leaving in 1988 to study a Bachelor of Commerce at the University of Otago. Chris worked for a consulting firm in his early years out of school, where he realised his desire “to add value, grow, and improve businesses, while investing in them himself.” Chris went into depth not only on his career path but also gave advice on aspiring students with goals that aligned with his.
A large investment Waterman Capital completed was ACG. Chris highlighted that there were many factors going into this investment. Liking education as a sector, having a strong view around private schools, and understanding ACG’s “point of difference in the market”, were all reasons of interest for investment. After investing in ACG, more schools were opened and notably the Vietnam and Indonesian schools grew rapidly due to the “demand for private schooling in those economies”.
Chris spoke about the importance of risk taking in his private equity career, advising us not to wait around to follow your passion. Chris explained that, when starting a business at a young age, it is a a challenge to gain investor trust and credibility. His method to overcome this was raising a smaller amount of capital while young and delivering strong returns. Waterman was then able to leverage their track record to subsequently raise larger funds.
"Chris’ talk was very informative, providing many key values and insights in a career on private equity. He closed with an important response, explaining that “hard craft and hard work” is most important – King’s provides a great platform, but it is up to the individual to do something with that. His visit left the audience with very memorable ideas that can be applied in their future careers."
Jonty Batchelor (Year 12, Greenbank), Phillips Society.