With a goal of consolidating its real estate investments and expanding that part of its business, Sammons Enterprises Inc. announced this week the formation of Compatriot Capital Inc.

“We believe the current dynamics in the real estate market have afforded a unique opportunity to make direct investments in real estate operating companies,” Paul Rowsey, president and CEO of Compatriot and a former employee of E2M Partners, said in a release.

In 2010, Sammons acquired a 30 percent interest in E2M, a Dallas-based private equity firm investing in national real estate assets, after being a longtime investor in several funds managed by that company and its predecessors, according to a release.

A core holding of Compatriot will be KDC Holdings, a commercial real estate and investment company that Sammons and E2M jointly acquired in 2008.

“We intend to identify companies who are market leaders across the spectrum of the real estate industry nationwide,” Rowley said in a release. “We have already developed a robust pipeline of opportunities and have a number of discussions currently underway.”

Sammons Annuity Group in West Des Moines is subsidiary of Dallas-based Sammons Enterprises, one of the largest privately held companies in the United States with nearly $50 million in assets.

“We’ll be investing in various companies that operate in different asset classes in real estate,” Heather Kreager, president of Sammons Enterprises, told the Business Record.