Carmel Fisher often refers to the multibillion-dollar Fisher Funds KiwiSaver business she created from scratch as her third child. She started the fund in 1998, the year she gave birth to her first daughter.
It was a business she thought she could manage while raising a family.
Fisher ran it from her Takapuna home with her co-founder and husband Hugh, as her child grew. Then a second daughter was added to the family, as the business grew.
Most recently it is responsible for Fisher being recognised as a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for service to business.
Fisher had built her reputation as a fund manager at Prudential, and then Sovereign, managing huge portfolios of money, but she wanted control over her own destiny as she started a family.
The fund attracted $50 million in investments within two years and eventually grew through key acquisitions into New Zealand’s fifth-largest fund manager, with more than 255,000 clients and funds totalling $7 billion.
The couple then sold it to TSB in 2017 for $90 million opting for retirement, although Carmel still keeps busy managing her family’s portfolio of investments, and remains on the boards of various Fisher investment funds.
She is also on the boards of Kotare Capital, which she and Hugh owns, and NZ Trade and Enterprise.
Earlier this year, the couple bought a 9ha property near Leigh for $12m, in one of the biggest residential property deals of the year. They are believed to be keen to build a lodge on the site, which has panoramic views of the Hauraki Gulf and direct access to Omaha Cove.
In another notable deal in 2016, they bought Chateau de La Sur Mer in Takapuna for $22m. The property had been marketed as “arguably the finest private residence in New Zealand.”
2018: $90 million