FILE PHOTO: Jared Kushner speaks during the Wall Street Journal CEO Council, at the Newseum in Washington, U.S., December 9, 2019. REUTERS/Al Drago/File Photo

(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, Sky News reported on Friday, citing industry sources.

Affinity Partners, which was founded by Kushner in 2021 and has investments from funds in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, has acquired the OakNorth stake from an unidentified existing investor, Sky News said.

The investment company did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the report.

OakNorth declined to comment. The SoftBank-backed group, which was founded by Rishi Khosla and Joel Perlman and launched in 2015, has in the past leaned towards a U.S. listing to expand its business.

The report 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 with 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)

(Reporting by Unnamalai L and Rishab Shaju in Bengaluru; Editing by Sahal Muhammed)