Jared Kushner sank $170m into an obscure British e-commerce company that auditors flagged last year over doubts that it would survive without fresh investment.
The loss-making company, Unybrands, is one of many owned by Affinity Partners, an investment firm run by Donald Trump’s son-in-law and backed by Middle East sovereign wealth funds. Last year it hit $6.2bn in assets under management.
Affinity holds stakes in other UK companies including Revolut, the fintech that recently became a bank and this week posted profits of £1.7bn, and OakNorth, another bank.
In summer 2021, six months after his departure from the White House, Kushner secured a $2bn investment from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund (PIF). According to the New York Times, the fund’s investment screening panel objected to the decision, citing “the inexperience of the Affinity Fund management”; a management fee that “seems excessive”; and “public relations risks” from Kushner’s previous role as a senior adviser to President Trump during his first term.
‘We showed Kushner some of the products that we sold on a table, and brought him some nice food He didn’t really ask much. He had this vacant look’
‘We showed Kushner some of the products that we sold on a table, and brought him some nice food He didn’t really ask much. He had this vacant look’
Former Unybrands employee
PIF’s chair and Trump ally, the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, nevertheless saw fit to wave through the investment. Within months, Kushner had the cash in hand and began hunting investments. Unybrands was one of the first.
In March 2022, Kushner and several other investment partners at Affinity took a boat ride from their beachside office to meet Unybrands representatives at its headquarters in Miami.
“[Kushner] came in halfway through the meeting and we showed him some of the products that we sold on a table, and brought him some nice food,” a former Unybrands employee said.
“He didn't really ask much. He had this vacant look.”
Kushner was introduced to Unybrands by Adam Neumann, the billionaire co-founder of WeWork, whose tumultuous career has been depicted in the Apple TV miniseries WeCrashed. Neumann invested in Unybrands through his family office in 2021.
Other shareholders at one point included Morebath Limited, a fund linked to Mark Denning, a manager who resigned from Capital Group after it was discovered he had broken investment rules (a claim he denied), and Kokkuhoideur, an investment company owned by Finnish noble family the Ehrnrooths. Kushner got involved a month after the meeting in Miami, signing a cheque for an initial $75m.
Newsletters
Choose the newsletters you want to receive
View more
For information about how The Observer protects your data, read our Privacy Policy
But the timing was poor. Unybrands is what’s known as an “Amazon aggregator” – a holding company that buys up smaller Amazon vendors and is wrapped as a tech company. Items sold by its subsidiaries include party bag fillers, foot-warming pads, microwavable cuddly toys and dog health supplements.
During the pandemic, aggregators were a booming market, taking advantage of low interest rates and stay-at-home boredom to raise more than $16bn from Wall Street banks. By 2022, however, the market was fighting a surge in inflation, a rout in tech stocks, and a return to bricks and mortar.
Unybrands recorded a loss for the financial year of $13.6m in 2024, following a loss of $33.4m in 2023. In October last year, Affinity wrote off Unybrand’s $171m in debt and converted it into shares instead – effectively accepting it was never going to get that money back as cash.
The company's auditors, S&W Audit, have issued a going concern warning, stating that the group's survival depends on Affinity either extending its own loan notes, which mature in July, or new lenders being found.
In recent weeks, Kushner has been seeking an extra $5bn for Affinity Partners from investors, according to the New York Times. At the same time, he has occupied an informal role as one of the US government’s chief negotiators in the Middle East.
Last week two Democratic senators launched an investigation into Affinity, citing “serious concerns about whether the White House is letting Mr Kushner use his influence for personal financial gain”.
Kushner, however, is likely to be focused on other matters. On Monday a debt sale was launched linked to the enormous $55bn take-private deal for the video-game maker Electronic Arts. Affinity has contributed roughly $400 million in equity. The auction showed a robust appetite from investors.
For Affinity’s other UK investments, including Revolut and an 8% stake in OakNorth bank, Kushner’s political activities or Gulf links have not yet caused concern.
The Bank of England’s rules on new bank authorisations state it will review a “firm’s controllers and ultimate owners and their sources of funds to assess whether they are fit and proper”.
The Prudential Regulation Authority said it would not comment on individual firms, or on whether Affinity or its ultimate investors had been assessed before Revolut was granted a banking licence.
A representative for Affinity Partners declined to comment.
A Unybrands spokesperson said the company had “a vision to build the next-generation brand-accelerator platform”, had grown revenues significantly since 2022 and had acquired 25 brands.
Photograph by Angela Weiss / AFP via Getty Images