Amit Bhatia (born 4 September 1979) is a British businessman. He is the founding partner of Swordfish Investments and chairman of
Queens Park Rangers
Queens Park Rangers Football Club, commonly abbreviated to QPR, is a professional football club based in Shepherd's Bush, West London, England, which compete in the . After a nomadic early existence, they have played home matches at Loftus ...
football club.
Early and personal life
Amit Bhatia was born in London, United Kingdom. He was educated in
Delhi
Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders wi ...
at
Columba's School until 1995, followed by
Dulwich College
Dulwich College is a 2–19 independent, day and boarding school for boys in Dulwich, London, England. As a public school, it began as the College of God's Gift, founded in 1619 by Elizabethan actor Edward Alleyn, with the original purpose o ...
in London, United Kingdom, in 1996, and at the
British School in Delhi in 1997. Bhatia attended
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to ...
where he studied economics. He has since remained involved in alumni matters, now serving on Cornell's External Advisory Council for Internalization. He has lectured at the university's Johnson School for MBA students.
In 2004 Bhatia married Vanisha Mittal, the daughter of steel tycoon and chairman and CEO of
ArcelorMittal
ArcelorMittal S.A. is a Luxembourgian multinational steel manufacturing corporation headquartered in Luxembourg City. It was formed in 2006 from the takeover and merger of Arcelor by Indian-owned Mittal Steel. ArcelorMittal is the second la ...
,
Lakshmi Mittal
Lakshmi Niwas Mittal (; born 15 June 1950) is an Indian steel magnate, based in the United Kingdom. He is the Executive Chairman of ArcelorMittal, the world's second largest steelmaking company, as well as Chairman of stainless steel manufacture ...
. They have three children.
Career
Bhatia began his career working at
Merrill Lynch
Merrill (officially Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated), previously branded Merrill Lynch, is an American investment management and wealth management division of Bank of America. Along with BofA Securities, the investment banki ...
and
Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the f ...
in New York before moving to
Credit Suisse First Boston
Credit Suisse First Boston (also known as CSFB and CS First Boston) is the investment banking affiliate of Credit Suisse headquartered in New York.
The company was created by the merger of First Boston Corporation and Credit Suisse Group in 198 ...
in London. He then incubated
Swordfish Investments, a Mayfair-based private equity/venture fund, and Swordfish Capital Management, an investment management company. Investments included education, media, telecoms, financial services, technology, consumer goods and real estate.
Bhatia was chairman and founder of
Hope Construction Materials
Breedon Cement, formerly Hope Construction Materials and later Hope Cement, is a producer of cement, concrete and aggregates in the United Kingdom, founded on 7 January 2013 by entrepreneur Amit Bhatia. Before 1 April 2014, Hope Construction Mat ...
, the UK's largest independent cement aggregates and concrete company. The company was formed in January 2013 after the divestment of 200 sites by two of the UK's biggest building materials companies,
Tarmac Group
Tarmac Group Limited was a British building materials company headquartered in Wolverhampton, United Kingdom. It produced road surfacing and heavy building materials including aggregates, concrete, cement and lime, as well as operating as a ...
and
Lafarge
La Farge, LaFarge or Lafarge can refer to:
People
* Antoinette LaFarge (1966–), American artist and writer
* Christopher Grant LaFarge (1862–1938), American architect and partner in the firm Heins & LaFarge
* Christopher Grant La Farge (a ...
. Hope's assets include the largest cement works in the UK at
Hope Valley in Derbyshire, 172 ready-mix plants, 4 rail heads, 5 major quarries, 7 national offices, a fleet of over 400 tanker and mixer vehicles and over 1000 employees. The company was the UK's first construction firm to join the World Economic Forum's Global Growth Companies (GGC) community and one of just two European construction firms to meet membership criteria.
In August 2016, Bhatia sold Hope to Breedon Aggregates, making the newly formed
Breedon Group
Breedon Group plc (formerly Ennstone plc) is an AIM-listed British construction materials company headquartered at Breedon on the Hill, Leicestershire, England. In 2016 Breedon became the UK's largest independent construction materials firm foll ...
, the UK's largest independent construction materials group. Bhatia joined the board as a non-executive director following its acquisition and is a substantial shareholder of the company. In April 2018, Bhatia was promoted to become its deputy chairman and in May 2019 Bhatia was appointed as chairman of the board.
His other business interests encompass real estate and technology. Bhatia is a partner of Summix, a strategic land fund with a nationwide portfolio of assets that has delivered thousands of homes across the UK and Ireland since 2006. In 2017, he helped launch Summix Capital as a vehicle to help deliver larger and more complex projects.
He is also a partner of Initial Capital, an investor in seed and early-stage technology companies with a focus on games and consumer services. Initial Capital is based out of London and Silicon Valley, and has played a key role in growing its portfolio companies.
Bhatia serves on the advisory board of Metro Bank, is a William Pitt Group group member at Chatham House and a Gold Leaf member of the Aspen Institute. He was awarded Young Entrepreneur of the Year by Theresa May in 2013, Outstanding Young Executive of the Year and Young Director of the Year in 2014.
Sports
In 2007 Bhatia bought a stake in
Queens Park Rangers FC. He has served as their vice-chairman since then with the exception of a brief time in 2011, when he resigned from QPR's board in frustration after his bid to buy the whole club was unsuccessful.
On 15 August 2018, Bhatia was appointed chairman of the club after co-chairmen
Tony Fernandes
Anthony Francis Fernandes (born 30 April 1964) is a Malaysian entrepreneur. He is the founder of Tune Air Sdn. Bhd., which took over the first Malaysian budget airline, AirAsia. Fernandes turned AirAsia, a failing government-linked commerci ...
and
Ruben Gnanalingam vacated their positions.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bhatia, Amit
English football chairmen and investors
British people of Indian descent
Queens Park Rangers F.C. directors and chairmen
Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management alumni
1979 births
Living people
British philanthropists
St. Columba's School, Delhi alumni
People educated at Dulwich College