Kim Kardashian, Carlyle’s Jay Sammons Launch Private Equity Firm Focused on Luxury, Hospitality

Reality star turned entrepreneur Kim Kardashian and a former partner at Carlyle Group are launching a new private equity firm.

Kardashian is working with Jay Sammons, who oversaw consumer investing for Carlyle, to start SKKY Partners, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Wednesday (Sept. 7). The firm will invest in a range of sectors, including consumer products, hospitality, luxury, digital commerce and media, plus consumer media and entertainment businesses.

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Kardashian parlayed her fame from a reality show empire featuring her family into a growing business empire that includes the undergarment and apparel firm Skims — recently valued at $3.2 billion, per the report — and the skin care line SKKN BY KIM.

Sammons told WSJ he approached Kardashian and her mother, Kris Jenner, about launching the venture earlier this year. Jenner, who manages the family’s businesses, will become a partner in SKKY.

SKKY aims to make both control and minority investments in companies, according to the report. Kardashian said the notion of working closely with entrepreneurs to help them build their companies is what drew her to start SKKY, and she will draw on her own experiences from her companies when working to help portfolio brands bloom.

“The exciting part is to sit down with these founders and figure out what their dream is,” Kardashian said, per the report. “I want to support what that is, not change who they are in their DNA, but just support and get them to a different level.”

PYMNTS noted earlier this year that Kardashian returned to the list of celebrity billionaires, as her own cosmetics and reality TV businesses nearly doubled and brought her estimated net worth to $1.8 billion.

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Earlier this year, she was named in a class action lawsuit — along with former NBA star Paul Pierce and boxer Floyd Mayweather — for allegedly making misleading statements while promoting EthereumMax, a cryptocurrency that an investor said was a pump-and-dump scam. Kardashian’s attorneys moved last month to dismiss the suit.