SHANGHAI (Reuters) – The company owned by the family of senior White House aide Jared Kushner will skip roadshow events in China this weekend seeking money from local investors for a real estate project in exchange for a shot at U.S. immigrant visas, a company spokesman said.
Nicole Kushner Meyer, Jared’s sister, appeared at marketing events last weekend in Beijing and Shanghai in an effort to raise $150 million from Chinese investors through the controversial EB-5 visa-for-investment program.
According to marketing materials from one of the organizers of the roadshow, sales events for the project are scheduled in the southern cities of Shenzhen on Saturday and Guangzhou on Sunday.
“No one from Kushner Companies will be in China this weekend,” James Yolles, spokesman for the firm, said.
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The company and KABR Group are raising money for a two-tower apartment complex in New Jersey called One Journal Square, marketing materials showed.
Kushner Companies earlier this week apologized for Meyer having mentioned Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, in discussing the project. The company said Meyer had done so only in an attempt to make clear that her brother was not involved.
“Kushner Companies apologizes if that mention of her brother was in any way interpreted as an attempt to lure investors. That was not Ms. Meyer’s intention,” it said.
In addition to Meyer, Laurent Morali, president of Kushner Companies, was included in marketing materials online for the China road show.
Jared Kushner, whose White House portfolio includes relations with China, sold his stake in Kushner Companies to a family trust early this year.
The EB-5 program allows wealthy foreigners to, in effect, buy U.S. immigration visas for themselves and families by investing at least $500,000 in certain development projects.
A member of the audience at the marketing event in Shanghai said Meyer spoke for about 10 minutes during last Sunday’s event and described her family’s humble roots.
According to the New York Times, in Beijing on Saturday she told the audience of about 100 people the project “means a lot to me and my entire family”.
(Reporting by John Ruwitch; Additional reporting by Koh Gui Qing in New York; Editing by Tony Munroe and Lincoln Feast)
