Andrew Fishwick is the founder and chief executive of Hestia, a London-based platform that acquires premium restaurant groups and gives their founders capital and a shared central team.

The company says it is aiming to build a premium hospitality portfolio worth more than £500m, spanning ten brands, within five years, and Fishwick is now putting in place a facility to fund its first acquisitions, with a corporate bond to follow. Before hospitality he produced more than two dozen West End and Broadway shows. He tells Business Matters why founders deserve long-term backing, what theatre taught him about a busy service and why he keeps asking whether the numbers reconcile.

What do you currently do at Hestia?

I run Hestia, which is acquiring premium restaurant groups and helping them grow. We look for businesses with a strong name, a loyal following and inspirational founders. Our central team takes on the work that tends to hold a growing group back, such as finance and reporting, property, technology, purchasing and governance.

Most of my week goes on the acquisitions themselves and the capital behind them, which is a polite way of saying I spend a lot of time with lawyers (love you, Julian). We are putting in place a facility to fund our first acquisitions, with a corporate bond to follow.

The rest of the week I spend eating in restaurants we admire, which is the bit most people offer to help with. My accountant calls this due diligence, and I have not corrected him.

I am also a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Entrepreneurs, and we are working on helping scale-ups across the UK at the moment, which I am really enjoying.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

I have spent around 25 years as an operator and chief executive, first in the cultural sector and then in hospitality. People assume that is a big leap. It really is not. Both put on a show every night, and both can lose money alarmingly fast if the audience stays at home.

Over that time, I kept meeting the same kind of business. A brilliant restaurant group, loved by its guests and run by people who had put everything into it, would reach a point where it could not grow any further on its own.

Private equity wanted an exit within a few years, and the pressure to get there often wore away the very thing that made the place special. The banks, when asked, mostly looked at their shoes.

Hestia is my answer to that. Founders get proper capital and a group-level back office while keeping hold of what they built. I think they deserve backing for the long term.

Who do you admire?

Operators who grow without losing what made them good in the first place. The ones I admire most can open their twentieth restaurant and it still feels like their first.

In business more widely, I have learned a great deal from Justin King, who I am fortunate to count as my Chair at Hestia and a friend and confidant. His decade at Sainsbury’s showed how a large consumer business can be turned round by keeping the customer at the centre of every decision.

He also still takes my calls, which after some of the questions I have asked him shows remarkable patience.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

I would have started working with the partners we have now much sooner. What we are trying to achieve with Hestia is simple. The financing and mechanics behind it are anything but, and I now know more about warehouse facilities than any normal person reasonably should.

There are still rogues out there too. But we now have a team in place that can bring this home.

What defines your way of doing business?

Long-term partnership. When we invest in a restaurant group the founders stay, and they stay because they want to, with a real share in what comes next.

I am also particular about numbers. My team will tell you that the four words they least like to hear from me are “does this still reconcile?” Hospitality is a small world, and a reputation for doing what you said you would do takes years to build.

Theatre taught me a lot of the rest. I produced more than two dozen West End and Broadway shows and built the first new purpose-built theatre in London for over half a century. On opening night every person in the building matters, from the lead to the stage door. A good restaurant on a Saturday night works in much the same way.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

Know your numbers before anyone asks you for them. Few things go down worse in a pitch than promising to “come back to you” on gross margin.

Choose your partners with care, as you will probably spend longer with them than with your family. Look after your team, and they will look after the business for you.

Finally, eat out as often as you can afford. It counts as research, whatever my wife says.

Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said the gradual growth of commuter students was linked to the cost of living.

“Aside from tuition fees, the single biggest cost is rent where you can pay up to £1,000 a month depending where you live,” he said.

“Even if you receive the maximum maintenance loan rate, it may not be enough to cover both rent and other daily expenditures.”

Hillman said there were advantages and disadvantages to being a commuter student.

“If you live at home, you are more likely to keep your network of family and friends, and other support network,” he said.

“However, you may be not immersing in campus life experience.

“Some universities are adapting to this commuter student trend by reducing on-campus attendance to three days a week and offering hotel-style accommodation.”

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ET Intelligence Group: Moneyview, a digital lending and financial services platform, plans to raise ₹750 crore through a fresh issue to fund growth in loan disbursals and strengthen the capital base of its subsidiary along with ₹342 crore through an offer for sale. The promoter shareholding will fall to 19.3% after the IPO from 23.9%. Its registered user base has increased 61% annually over the past two years, while its monetised users have more than doubled. However, asset quality has deteriorated — gross non-performing assets (GNPA) ratio rose to 2.7% in FY26 from 0.9% in FY24. It remains exposed to regulatory risk. Any changes in norms by the banking regulator to restrict unsecured loans may affect its loan growth. Given these factors, investors may wait for a better clarity on financials after the listing.

Business

Incorporated in 2014, the company primarily offers services through its digital platform with personal loans remaining a key revenue driver. It has expanded into credit cards, earned wage access, home loans, loans against property, insurance, digital gold, UPI and bill payments though these offerings remain at a nascent stage. The company primarily serves households with annual income between ₹3 lakh and ₹11 lakh. Its registered users rose 27% annually to 13.4 crore between FY24 and FY26. The number of monetised users grew 53% annually to 1.1 crore over the same period. Revenue is primarily derived from fees, commissions and interest income. In FY26, fees and commissions contributed 56.7% to revenue. According to the Redseer Report, India’s personal loan market is projected to grow 18-20% annually to ₹33-36 lakh crore by FY31.
Read more: Chasing IPO debut highs? All 10 listing multibaggers of last 2 years bleed negative returns

Financials

Total income increased annually by 56.5% to ₹3,404.3 crore in FY26 from ₹1,389.2 crore in FY24. Loan disbursals increased 31% to ₹23,098.52 crore in FY26 from ₹14,527.2 crore in FY24 while loan margin expanded to 8.6% from 7.5%. Assets Under Management (AUM) rose 28% to ₹21,380.1 crore from ₹12,884.8 crore in FY24. Net profit increased to ₹242.7 crore from ₹171.2 crore in FY24. Return on equity increased to 19.2% in FY26 from 13.6% in FY25. Credit costs have risen sharply, with impairment increasing to 28.9% of total income in FY26 from 18.2% in FY24.
Read more: Gautam Adani reclaims top spot as India’s richest, edges out Mukesh Ambani: Hurun Rich List

Valuations

The issue is valued at a price-book (P/B) of 1.9 on post-IPO basis. OnEMI Technology Solutions, which provides app based digital lending, trades at a P/B of 2.9; its premium valuation reflects a better asset quality, with GNPA falling to 2.3% in the June 2026 quarter from 3.6% in the year-ago period.

CANBERRA — Escalating geopolitical conflicts and maritime security disruptions in major international shipping lanes have exposed severe vulnerabilities within Australia’s liquid fuel supply chains, reigniting debate over the nation’s systemic economic dependence on imported energy.

As international energy markets face heightened volatility, Australia’s low domestic fuel reserves and reliance on overseas refining capacity have left critical national infrastructure—including road transport, agricultural production, mining operations, and emergency services—exposed to foreign supply shocks. The ongoing crisis has prompted industry groups, security analysts, and supply chain experts to demand structural policy reforms aimed at rebuilding national self-reliance and sovereign fuel reserves.

Structural Vulnerabilities in Offshore Refining and Maritime Shipping

Australia’s liquid fuel vulnerability stems from a decades-long decline in domestic refining capacity coupled with a complete reliance on complex, extended maritime supply lines. Over 80 percent of the nation’s refined petroleum products—including petrol, diesel, and aviation fuel—are imported from major refining hubs in East Asia. These regional processing centers, in turn, rely heavily on crude oil shipments originating in the Middle East and passing through sensitive maritime bottlenecks such as the Strait of Hormuz.

When regional conflicts or shipping bottlenecks disrupt traffic through these key maritime corridors, the operational impact on Australia’s domestic supply chain is virtually immediate. Unlike other industrial nations that maintain extensive state-managed strategic petroleum reserves, Australia operates with minimal physical inventory buffers onshore. Consequently, unexpected delays in tanker arrivals rapidly translate into localized stock depletion at commercial distribution hubs and retail service stations across the country.

“The current energy shock clearly demonstrates that our strategic national security is inextricably linked to liquid fuel availability,” noted a senior supply chain analyst at a Canberra-based public policy institute. “Relying almost entirely on long maritime import lines without adequate domestic reserves leaves our primary industries and emergency services completely vulnerable to foreign geopolitical events.”

Amplified Operational Pressure on Agriculture, Transport, and Logistics

The real-world consequences of global fuel supply shocks extend far beyond retail bowser price surges, creating compounding operational friction across essential national industries. Regional communities and agricultural producers are exceptionally exposed due to their heavy operational reliance on diesel fuel for planting, harvesting, and freight logistics.

In the transport sector, freight operators managing razor-thin margins face acute pressure from fluctuating fuel costs and localized supply rationing. Transport industry bodies have repeatedly warned federal authorities that sustained disruptions to long-haul trucking routes risk destabilizing grocery distribution networks, medical supply deliveries, and regional construction activity.

Simultaneously, major mining and civil construction projects located in remote inland regions face elevated project timeline risks. Because inland industrial sites operate at the end of long commercial distribution chains, regional operators face prioritized rationing whenever national fuel imports drop below standard baseline levels.

Re-evaluating Sovereign Capability and Mandatory Reserve Standards

The escalating crisis has intensified scrutiny of federal energy policy and statutory storage mandates. Under current regulatory frameworks, fuel importers and refiners are required to maintain baseline minimum operational stocks of petrol, jet fuel, and diesel under national fuel security legislation. However, industry critics argue these mandated reserve levels are insufficient to withstand prolonged multi-month maritime disruptions.

To address these structural gaps, domestic industry representatives and national security scholars are calling for a comprehensive overhaul of Australia’s energy architecture. Proposed measures center on expanding physical onshore fuel storage capacity, incentivizing domestic refining operations, and accelerating sovereign production of alternative renewable fuels such as biodiesel and synthetic aviation fuel.

Furthermore, economic experts emphasize that building true resilience requires coupling emergency fuel stockpiles with broader industrial self-reliance. By expanding local manufacturing capacity, strengthening domestic supply chains, and diversifying energy inputs across the commercial transport sector, Australia can reduce its systemic exposure to external economic shocks.

Primary Friction Points Threatening Australia’s Fuel Security

• High dependency on imported refined petroleum products sourced from Asian refining centers subject to Middle Eastern crude oil disruptions.
• Concentration of domestic fuel storage infrastructure around major coastal ports, leaving regional and inland distribution networks vulnerable.
• Severe operational exposure across agriculture, long-haul freight transport, and emergency services due to lack of localized on-site diesel buffers.
• Disconnect between strategic national security planning and commercial liquid fuel import dependency during global energy crises.

Strategic Imperatives for National Energy Sovereignty

As global energy market volatility persists, the imperative for Australia to modernize its national fuel security strategy has moved to the center of policy debate. Policymakers face growing pressure to treat liquid fuel storage and refining capacity not merely as commercial assets, but as critical components of national defense and economic sovereignty.

Establishing secure onshore storage reserves, modernizing transport fleet infrastructure, and expanding sovereign fuel manufacturing will determine Australia’s capacity to navigate future global supply shocks. Without decisive policy interventions to bolster energy self-reliance, the nation remains structurally exposed to the unpredictable currents of international conflict and geopolitical turmoil.

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The heads of OpenAI, Anthropic, and Hugging Face have told the UN that the current pace of artificial intelligence (AI) development, and the risks it poses to society, demands international coordination.

Altman called for common risk evaluation standards, as did Dario Amodei of Anthropic, a main rival of OpenAI, and Clement Delangue of Hugging Face.

Earlier this month, Amodei wrote an essay welcomed by Altman and others calling an AI development slowdown in response to fears about the technology’s threat to humanity.

However, at the same UN conference, a key technology advisor to US President Donald Trump, rejected the idea any new form of AI regulation.

Michael Kratsios, a former Scale AI executive, admitted that the speed of AI development is increasing and that there are risks presented by the technology, but told the UN this was not reason enough “to pause development or constrain it with new global governance structures”.

“International dialogue in this forum and others cannot be allowed to drift toward global governance,” Kratsios added.

Kratsios’s comments echoed similar statements made by Trump in recent weeks.

Trump told the UN on Tuesday he wanted to rebrand it “super intelligence” and has strongly opposed any idea of an AI slowdown because of the US’s competitive advantage in the sector.

“We’re leading China on AI… and, frankly, I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI, wins,” he said earlier this month.

Sam Altman of OpenAI and other AI chief executives expressed a different view in their talks to the UN on Wednesday.

“If AI is to be democratic, the most important decisions cannot be made by labs in San Francisco alone,” said Altman.

He told the UN that he wanted countries to start working together toward “the collective good in the face of powerful new technology”.

He called for “national and international” AI standards on measuring the capabilities of an AI tool, assessing related risks, AI safeguards, and the degree to which human oversight over such tools is maintained.

He also called for “speedy incident reporting, classification, and reporting protocols so the world can learn from failures before they become catastrophes”.

“We need common standards so countries can compare evidence, verify compliance, and have a shared language and understanding what is happening,” Altman added.

A House panel held a hearing on Wednesday to discuss the need for the U.S. and China to responsibly pace artificial intelligence (AI) development ahead of this week’s meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the U.S. and the Chinese Communist Party held a virtual shadow hearing led by Ranking Member Ro Khanna, D-Calif., with a focus on calls for controlling AI development to address risks like the loss of control or misalignment that could have economic and social consequences.

EqualAI CEO Miriam Vogel told the panel that there is a need for international engagement over AI governance, including between the U.S. and China, explaining that while “our institutions and values are different, if the U.S. wants to shape global AI norms, we first have to define and operationalize our own.”

Vogel added that “American leadership on AI requires leadership on AI governance,” and said that it can also help foster innovation, saying that “effective governance does not slow down innovation. It’s the infrastructure that allows innovation to scale.”

ANTHROPIC, OPENAI CEOS WARN AI COULD THREATEN HUMANITY WITHOUT SAFEGUARDS

Vogel compared AI governance to regulations covering the automotive and aviation industries that are relied upon every day around the country.

“We fly 45,000 flights across the U.S. airspace daily because passengers trust international safeguards for certification, inspection, maintenance and investigation. We put our families in our vehicles daily because we know they’ve met global and national safety standards,” she said.

“AI needs that same institutional discipline and we need an AI-literate workforce. This is a workforce issue, a competitiveness issue, and a national security issue,” she added.

TRUMP REBRANDS AI, REJECTS ‘GLOBALIST SCHEME’ TO CONTROL TECH

Vogel discussed additional elements of what she sees as a plan for AI governance, saying that there is a need for “governance throughout the AI lifecycle.”

“Too often, proposed safeguards end with the model development. Some of the highest-stakes AI interactions occur during deployment in financial institutions, hospitals, workplaces, and public institutions where governance can be weakest,” she said.

Vogel noted findings by the World Economic Forum that less than 1% of companies have strong AI governance, while McKinsey reported that under a third of companies have AI governance in place.

Agentic AI, which can take actions and interact with other systems with a measure of autonomy granted by the user, may pose a concern without sufficient governance. Vogel explained that a simulation at EqualAI’s agentic AI governance summit showed a lack of governance can lead to scenarios where “ordinary deployments quickly escalated into incidents and then crises.”

TRUMP TO DECIDE WHETHER TO GREEN LIGHT US-CHINA ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ‘HOTLINE’ AGREEMENT: SOURCES

The Trump administration is reportedly considering creating a “hotline” between the U.S. and China, similar to those used by the military, to give the two sides a direct line of communication if AI-related problems arise, like hacking, national security concerns, rogue AIs or other issues.

President Donald Trump has argued against regulations that could rein in AI development, telling the UN General Assembly this week that he doesn’t want to stifle the growth of a technology that could be transformational for the economy.

AI leaders like Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman have said they need to pace the development of cutting-edge frontier models to ensure the AI remains aligned and doesn’t elude developers’ ability to control it.

“Discussions about a pause in AI development must include China. American leadership requires governance that allows AI systems to earn and deserve, and safeguards should extend across the AI life cycle,” Vogel said.

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“We have navigated technological transformation before, not by stopping innovation, but by building the institutions capable of governing it,” she added.

Flash PMI data from S&P Global shows US business continues to boom, with output growing at the fastest rate for over five years in September. Payroll growth, meanwhile, hit the highest for over four years as companies sought to