The purchase of a ten per cent interest in the real estate services and investment firm Kennedy Wilson, has drawn attention to just how interwoven money making businesses and ‘service providing’ businesses are. The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America has bought $30 million of ‘convertible subordinated debt’ from the Kennedy Wilson firm which will undoubtedly afford them influence as the company now retains only 54.1 per cent of the ownership.

The new capital from Guardian will afford Kennedy Wilson the ability to “take maximum advantage of the current opportunities in all sectors of the real estate investment, distressed debt and services businesses” commented William McMorrow, Kennedy Wilson’s chairman.

Tom Sorell, the Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer of the life insurance provider Guardian, states that “as a mutual life insurance company” they “operate solely for the benefit of” their policy holders. They went on to reassure their policy holders that their selection of “Kennedy Wilson as Guardian’s newest business relationship reflects” their “assessment of their strong record as a successful investor in the real estate investment field”.