Chris Goddard

Chris is an experienced corporate lawyer, with a particular focus on corporate finance transactions, including capital raisings, mergers and acquisitions and takeovers.

​Chris has extensive international experience, having worked at leading international law firm Herbert Smith Freehills in London and Tokyo for over 11 years.

Chris has a wealth of experience advising on mergers and acquisitions, private equity, IPOs, bond offers, secondary offers and takeovers. His recent work highlights include advising SkyCity, Synlait, Asset Plus, Contact Energy, Investore and Stride Property Group on their capital raisings, Napier Port on its $234 million IPO and NZX listing, AIA International on its acquisition of the Sovereign life insurance businesses, Super Retail Group on its NZ$144 million acquisition of Macpac, Bapcor on its NZ$350 million takeover of Hellaby Holdings, and SkyCity, Synlait and Investore Property on their bond offers.

As well as advising corporate clients across a broad range of industries and sectors, Chris regularly advises investment banks. He has also completed secondments at Goldman Sachs in New Zealand and at Deutsche Bank and Lazard in London.​

The Legal 500 Asia Pacific 2019 recommends Chris as a corporate and M&A lawyer. Chris is also ranked as highly regarded for corporate and M&A in the IFLR1000 2022.