Aug 15 (Reuters) - A private equity firm founded by U.S.

President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner has signed a

deal to buy an 8% stake in British lender OakNorth, a person

familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday.

The firm, Affinity Partners, was founded by Kushner in 2021

and has investments from funds in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the

United Arab Emirates.

The investment company did not immediately respond to a

request for comment.

Sky News, which previously reported the development, said

that Affinity acquired the OakNorth stake from an unidentified

existing investor.

OakNorth declined to comment. The SoftBank-backed

group, founded by Rishi Khosla and Joel Perlman in 2015, has in

the past leaned towards a U.S. listing to expand its business.

The news also comes amid growing interest around Trump and

his affiliates' business ventures and talks of the U.S.

government possibly taking a stake in Intel.

OakNorth reported pretax profit of nearly 215 million pounds

($291.5 million) last year as it continued its expansion in the

U.S., where it began operating by mid-2023 and has received

licenses for a representative office in New York.

Sky News said the value of the Affinity-OakNorth transaction

was unclear. Reports have said the British lender was valued at

about $2.8 billion in its latest funding round in 2019.

OakNorth runs a business bank in Britain with more than 7.5

billion pounds in assets and supplies its technology to lenders

elsewhere.

In 2024, it had lent more than 2.1 billion pounds to

customers. Its clients include F1 Arcade and personalised

training provider Ultimate Performance.

"Despite ongoing macro-economic challenges, we are bullish

for 2025," OakNorth co-founder and CEO Rishi Khosla said in

March after the company's 2024 report was published.

SoftBank did not immediately respond to a Reuters request

for comment.

($1 = 0.7376 pounds)