Jared Kushner’s Miami-based Affinity Partners investment fund has signed an agreement to spend NIS 570 million on a 15 percent stake in Israeli Shlomo Group’s automotive and credit business.
The Saudi Wealth Fund invested $2 billion in the firm formed by Kushner in 2021 after he left the White House, where he served as a senior advisor to his father-in-law, then-President Donald Trump.
Saudi Arabia has approved the investment in the Israeli firm. Shlomo Group is valued at NIS 3.8 billion.
Under the contract, a new Shlomo Group-Affinity Partners subsidiary is to be formed to incorporate leasing, rental, sales, and credit activities. Affinity Partners will appoint a director and an observer to the new subsidiary’s board of directors.
“This is a significant and strategic step and is a historic landmark in the group’s international activities and a tremendous potential for adding value, in particular in the areas of rental, leasing and credit,” Shlomo Group chairman Asi Shmeltzer said in a statement published by Globes.
“The entry of an investor of strategic value, such as the Affinity Fund, will help us expand our ties for businesses and find new economic opportunities for the group’s companies in the Middle East, the US, and other countries,” he added.
“We are confident in the long-term growth forecast for Israel and the entire new Middle East. Shlomo Group’s historical growth has been solid, and its future holds many exciting opportunities,” Kushner added.
