Highly respected in both the academic and corporate worlds, Sir Christopher Mace has come a long way from his days as a teenage apprentice in the family construction business.
Knighted for services to science and education in 2016 and inducted into the Business Hall of Fame a year earlier, the 74-year-old hit the big time when Mace Developments merged with retailer LD Nathan in 1986 and then morphed into Lion Breweries and Lion Nathan. When Japan’s Kirin Brewery launched a partial takeover in 1998, Sir Christopher cashed in shares worth $90m.
While he has numerous private equity interests with his former fellow Lion Nathan directors Robin Congreve and Geoff Ricketts, Sir Christopher’s sole public shareholding is in Heartland Bank where he has been a director since 2010 and holds shares worth $24m.
Like many Rich Listers, Sir Christopher also has an appetite for industrial property in south Auckland. Through a subsidiary of Mace Capital he has an interest in a portfolio worth $45m and there’s also a 182ha retreat – valued at $14m – overlooking Paroa Bay near Russell where he shares ownership with Trevor Farmer.
A founding member of the Sir Peter Blake Trust, Sir Christopher is also a trustee of the Antarctic Heritage Trust and even has a mountain named after him, Mount Mace, in recognition of his services to Antarctica. A director of the New Zealand Initiative think tank, he is also a tertiary education commissioner and chairman of NIWA.
At the University of Auckland he chaired the South Pacific Marine Science Advisory Board from 2006-12 when it developed the Leigh Marine Research Centre where he is known to arrive in his helicopter.
Made a member of the Order of Merit for services to the arts and the community in the 2008 Queen’s Birthday honours list, Lady Dayle has served on several boards including Te Papa Tongarewa. The couple have three adult children and live in a $13m home in Remuera.