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A large share of Syria’s public wealth, including companies, factories, property and banking stakes linked to the former regime, is managed by an economic institution that reports directly to the presidency. It has broad powers to manage and invest assets and enter into long-term partnerships. Yet there is no clear budget setting out the total value of its holdings and returns, and questions remain over who controls its decisions and whether it is subject to independent financial oversight.
The Syrian Sovereign Fund, established in 2025, has become one of the principal instruments for reshaping the economy following the fall of Bashar Assad’s regime. It took on a role in managing assets recovered from businessmen within the former regime’s economic network, and its activities have expanded into telecommunications, industry, property and services.
The fund’s agreements during 2026 revealed multibillion-dollar projects with Gulf and Turkish companies, some of which give it ownership stakes and rights to future profits.
A report published by Britain’s Financial Times on 9 October 2026 reignited debate over the fund by describing the vast wealth transferred to its management. Syria’s Finance Ministry subsequently denied estimates attributed to Minister Mohammad Yusr Barnieh without providing an alternative total valuation. The debate extends beyond the value of the assets to how they were transferred and are managed, and the network of officials and investors overseeing their use in Syria’s new economy.
Who runs Syria’s sovereign fund, and who oversees it?
The fund was established under presidential Decree No. 113, issued on 24 June 2025, with details officially announced on 9 July that year. The decree provided for an economic institution with legal personality and financial and administrative independence, headquartered in Damascus and reporting directly to the presidency. Its purpose is to undertake development and production projects and turn idle state assets into investments that generate economic returns.
The decree defined the fund’s resources as government allocations, returns from its activities, fixed assets, investments and grants. It gave the board of directors powers to manage property and set investment policies. The general manager has authority over contracts, spending and legal representation and is accountable to the board and the president.
The fund’s establishment was part of a broader restructuring of economic institutions. This included the creation of the Syrian Development Fund under Decree No. 112 to finance reconstruction and basic services, and the Supreme Council for Economic Development under Decree No. 115. Chaired by the president, the council sets economic policy and oversees major investment institutions.
Details of the fund’s management structure began to emerge publicly at the Syrian-Emirati Investment Forum in Damascus on 11 May 2026. Officials presented its administrative structure and the economic sectors it covers, and the names and positions of several managers became public. There was, however, no comprehensive official announcement identifying the board’s members.
A Reuters investigation published on 24 July 2025 revealed the role of Hazem al-Sharaa, President Ahmad al-Sharaa’s elder brother, in overseeing an economic committee that negotiated with Assad-era businessmen and reorganised control over companies and economic assets. The investigation drew on interviews with more than 100 businessmen, officials, intermediaries, diplomats and researchers, as well as financial documents and company records.
The report identified Abraham Sukarieh, known as “Abu Maryam al-Australi,” as the official leading the committee’s economic wing. He later appeared under the name Ibrahim Sukarieh as the sovereign fund’s general manager. Mustafa Qdeid, known as “Abu Abdulrahman,” oversaw the committee’s finances, having previously been one of the leading officials managing economic resources in Idlib while it was under Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s control.
According to testimony from former Central Bank of Syria employees and committee members, Qdeid’s powers extended to intervening in major financial and banking decisions. Hazem al-Sharaa supervised the committee’s work without any officially announced government post at the time.
The central bank governor at the time, Abdelkader Husriyeh, denied the accuracy of the information about Qdeid’s interference in the bank’s decisions. The government, Hazem al-Sharaa and Sukarieh did not respond to the detailed questions Reuters sent before publishing its investigation.
In a more recent development involving the fund’s director, Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade announced on 3 October 2026 that it had renewed Abraham Sukarieh’s designation on its list of people subject to counterterrorism-related financial sanctions. He was first listed in 2018. Reuters had identified him as “Abu Maryam al-Australi.”
The designation restricts dealings in assets and funds linked to sanctioned individuals under Australian law. This raises questions about financial compliance arrangements at an institution that negotiates with international companies and manages public assets, particularly as the announced designation applies to the individual alone, rather than the fund.
Some figures who have appeared in the fund’s management hold government positions alongside executive roles in companies and sectors linked to it. The institution’s powers also give its managers a role in selecting partners and negotiating investment contracts. Disclosure of commercial interests and safeguards against conflicts of interest are therefore governance issues, particularly in the absence of an official list of all board members and their economic backgrounds.
The founding decree’s only oversight requirements are periodic reports to the presidency and an independent financial audit.
Official announcements have included neither an audited budget nor the names of the bodies appointed to audit the fund’s accounts. This is despite officials saying at the Syrian-Emirati Investment Forum that they were guided by the “Santiago Principles,” voluntary international standards for sovereign wealth fund governance covering disclosure of investment policies, risk management and financial accountability.
Stephen Heydemann, a professor of Middle East studies at Smith College, warned in July 2025 against giving the fund’s management and the presidency broad autonomy over public assets. He criticised reliance on a vague concept of idle property and argued that establishing the fund at this stage was premature, given the requirements for oversight and accountability.
By contrast, Finance Minister Mohammad Yusr Barnieh said on 10 July 2026 that the fund was a pillar of institutional investment and that its assets and returns belonged to the Syrian state. He noted the continuing coordination between the ministry and the fund’s management, and the fund’s role in protecting important properties from being lost and putting them to economic use.
The minister’s remarks identify the assets as publicly owned. Questions about their management concern the limits of officials’ powers, the bodies reviewing their decisions and contracts, and the extent to which the auditors provided for in the decree can exercise oversight independently of the institution managing the wealth.
$50 billion in assets? Tracing the wealth transferred to the fund
A Finance Ministry statement on 11 October 2026 revived debate over the scale of the wealth managed by the fund. The ministry’s media office denied the accuracy of remarks attributed to Minister Mohammad Yusr Barnieh claiming that the fund held assets worth about $50 billion. It stressed that the minister had given no figure for the value of the fund’s holdings or assets.
The denial followed a Financial Times report published on 9 October examining the transfer of companies and properties linked to businessmen from the former regime into the fund’s management.
The figure had circulated before the British newspaper’s report. On 23 July 2026, Agence France-Presse quoted Ahmad al-Riz, an economic researcher at The Syria Report, as saying that the Finance Ministry estimated the fund’s assets at that amount.
In an analysis published in October 2026 under the title “Fifty billion dollars of what?”, economic researcher Rayan al-Azhari traced how the figure had circulated. He explained that it first appeared as an estimate attributed to the Finance Ministry by an economic expert, before later being presented as an assessment issued by the minister himself. No document specified the methodology used to calculate it, the valuation date or the types of property included.
At the Syrian-Emirati Investment Forum in May 2026, fund officials presented figures on its property portfolio and projects offered for development, alongside data on the extent of its land holdings, companies and associated sectors. These figures illustrate the breadth of its activities. Establishing the fund’s actual wealth, however, depends on the value of its properties and existing stakes, their associated financial obligations, and how far ownership transfers have been completed.
One of the most significant periods of asset accumulation began in the first months after the Assad regime fell on 8 December 2024. The economic committee whose activities Reuters later revealed began negotiating with businessmen linked to the former regime to recover funds and company stakes while keeping production and commercial enterprises operating.
In its July 2025 investigation, Reuters estimated that the assets and funds obtained by the committee at that point exceeded $1.6 billion, citing documents and sources familiar with the settlements. These included stakes in industrial and commercial companies and institutions tied to the former presidential palace’s economic network.
One of the most prominent cases involved businessman Samer Foz, whose group expanded into sugar, iron, property and hotels during the Assad era. A source familiar with his settlement told Reuters that he surrendered about 80 per cent of his commercial assets, whose total value was estimated at between $800 million and $1 billion. The assets surrendered included a sugar refinery, an iron smelting plant and other industrial facilities.
Three sources close to the settlement involving businessman Mohammad Hamsho, who had economic ties to the former president’s brother, Maher Assad, also revealed that he surrendered about 80 per cent of his commercial assets, whose total value was estimated at more than $640 million. The assets surrendered included iron-processing facilities, while he retained some of his business and assets.
The measures also extended to aviation. Reuters reported a settlement with Issam Shammout, owner of the private airline Cham Wings. According to sources and a document reviewed by the agency, it included surrendering a 45 per cent stake in the company, paying $50 million and handing over two aircraft to the state-owned Syrian airline. Fly Cham also emerged as a new entity.
Some of these properties can be traced to the economic network overseen by Yassar Ibrahim, the businessman who managed interests linked to the presidential palace during the Assad era. Reuters uncovered a conglomerate of more than 100 companies operating under the name “Al-Ahed,” spanning banking, telecommunications, energy and property. Its interests overlapped with those of major businessmen through stakes and partnerships imposed by the former regime’s inner circle.
The investigation drew on company documents and an internal presentation from 2021 showing how operating companies and commercial fronts were used to control broad sectors of the economy. Renaud Leenders, a professor of political studies at King’s College London and a researcher in Syrian political economy, estimated that by 2024 Yassar Ibrahim may have controlled activities accounting for as much as 30 per cent of Syria’s economic output.
After the regime fell and Yassar Ibrahim fled, the new economic committee obtained documents and records relating to this network. It used them to trace companies and reassert control over some of them, according to Reuters. The agency quoted a former financial official in the group as estimating that control over at least half of its economic empire had shifted in the first months.
On 26 February 2026, Basel al-Suwaidan, head of the National Committee for Combating Illicit Gains, confirmed that the settlement with Samer Foz covered companies and assets in industry, commerce, services and banking. He said the recovered properties and funds were transferred to the Syrian Development Fund through the sovereign fund for management and investment.
Al-Suwaidan told SANA that recovery rates reaching 80 per cent in some settlements followed financial and legal audits and asset valuations. He explained that the rates take into account the public interest and the extent of cooperation and disclosure, while judicial proceedings concerning criminal liability and the rights of those harmed remain ongoing.
In an interview published by Al Majalla in March 2026, al-Suwaidan provided further details of Foz’s properties covered by the settlement. They included companies in the steel, cement, aviation and food industries; hotels, restaurants and tourism facilities; and shares and stakes in mining, phosphate and banking companies, including Syria International Islamic Bank and Bank of Syria and the Gulf.
Al-Suwaidan’s statements reveal an overlap between the roles of the sovereign fund and the Development Fund, which are legally separate institutions. He indicated that recovered assets were transferred to the Development Fund through the sovereign fund. Ownership records and financial entries between the two institutions are therefore essential to establishing which retains the rights to manage and dispose of each company and receive its returns.
The official announcement of the Foz settlement did not include a complete list of companies, their individual valuations or the entities in whose names ownership was registered. A source inside the sovereign fund told NoonPost that the assets were surrendered in accordance with approved legal procedures, and that some ownership transfers and the settlement of related claims and rights were still being completed.
The complexities of transferring economic control are also evident at Syriatel, Syria’s largest mobile phone operator. The company was linked for years to businessman Rami Makhlouf, Bashar Assad’s cousin, before being placed under judicial guardianship in 2020.
In an interview whose details were published on 31 August 2026, CEO Yasser Qahf said that most management authority at Syriatel had come under the sovereign fund. On 22 September, the Syrian economic website Business 2 Business reported, citing informed sources, that the fund had become the company’s largest shareholder. It did not specify the percentage of shares transferred to the fund.
Reuters had revealed in July 2025 that the economic committee had taken control of the company by appointing one of its members as an authorised signatory, according to a commercial registry reviewed by the agency. Syriatel said some of the investigation’s findings were inaccurate but did not specify which findings it disputed.
Shareholder records and ownership transfer decisions remain necessary to establish the status of Syriatel and other recovered assets. Some properties are subject to management and operating arrangements or usufruct rights, while others are tied to partners, creditors and legal disputes inherited from the previous period.
In August 2026, the fund’s deputy general manager, Mohammad Abdullah al-Far, said that work to inventory assets and assess them financially, legally and operationally was continuing alongside the work of the Committee for Combating Illicit Gains. Each asset, he explained, is assessed to determine the feasibility of developing it, restructuring it or involving investors in its operation before its final value and investment strategy are determined.
Who benefits from the fund’s billions, and how are they reinvested?
During 2026, the sovereign fund entered into agreements with regional and international companies to restart existing industrial facilities, develop public property and land, and establish new companies in strategic sectors. Ownership, operating and profit arrangements vary between projects.
Official disclosures by partner companies revealed some of the agreements’ financial values and the fund’s stakes, making it possible to trace how public assets are being used. More detailed financial data are still needed to establish the value of Syrian contributions and the returns generated by most projects.
In telecommunications, agreements with Saudi Telecom Co. (stc) and Kuwait’s Zain Group revealed the fund’s participation in new digital infrastructure projects, including fibre-optic networks, data centres and mobile communications. The operating companies retained the larger stakes.
In a disclosure published by the Saudi stock exchange on 8 February 2026, stc said the “Silk Link” project had been awarded following a competition involving regional telecoms companies. The disclosure did not specify the nature of the capital contribution the fund would make in exchange for its stake, or the value that would be assigned to any rights and assets it might contribute to the partnership.
Kuwait’s Zain Group obtained a licence to operate Syria’s second network after competing for the network previously run by MTN. It announced that the new company’s establishment would be accompanied by a programme to modernise infrastructure and introduce 5G technology. The planned investments would be financed from resources generated by its operations in the Syrian market.
In remarks published by SANA on 5 July 2026, Khaled al-Homsi, director-general of the Telecommunications and Post Regulatory Authority, said the licence payment went directly to the public treasury, while the fund would retain a share of the new company’s future profits. The project’s economic returns are thus divided between direct government revenue and the fund’s investment rights.
In industry, the fund adopted a different investment model, granting specialist companies the right to operate and develop existing facilities under arrangements to share financial results. This model is used in the agreement with Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Cables Group to rehabilitate and operate the Syrian Modern Cables Co. plant.
According to the group’s disclosure on the Saudi stock exchange, the agreement covers financing working capital, modernising production lines and transferring technical expertise. The project is to be implemented in four phases, with progress between them subject to operational, technical and financial assessments and both parties’ approval.
The agreement also allows the Saudi company to use the plant’s facilities, assets and equipment for production and sales. The fund’s returns depend on actual operating results. Valuing the assets and rights granted to the partner, and overseeing the plant’s accounts, are therefore important to determining the state’s financial gains.
In June 2026, Tiryaki Syria, a subsidiary of Turkey’s Tiryaki Agro Group, which specialises in trading and manufacturing agricultural products, signed a 10-year agreement with the fund to operate an industrial oil facility in Syria. It aims to process 300,000 tonnes of soybeans and 100,000 tonnes of sunflower seeds annually.
The Turkish group estimated the annual value of products that could be processed at about $500 million and committed to ensuring Syrians made up at least 75 per cent of the workforce. The announcement did not specify profit-sharing ratios or the capital commitments required from either party.
In property, the fund partnered with the UAE’s Arada Group, a property developer, on the “New Damascus” project. It includes residential complexes, tourism, commercial, educational and health facilities, and public parks.
The agreement was signed in early September 2026 by Arada’s CEO, Ahmad Alkhoshaibi, and Mohammad al-Khayyat, a board member and CEO of the fund’s property development sector. The published documents did not specify the value of the land contributed by the Syrian side or the profit and ownership shares allocated to each party.
Major property developments raise questions about property rights in Syria after years of displacement and disputes over land and real estate. A study published by The Syria Report on 22 September 2026 warned of the risks of undertaking large-scale development before checks on ownership, occupancy rights and compensation are complete.
The study examined projects including New Damascus and the coastal al-Bassa project. It called for clarification of the land’s legal status and the origins of its ownership, and for the landowning entity to be separate from the entity responsible for organising projects, contracting and receiving objections concerning rights. This is particularly relevant given the fund’s broad role in managing land, offering it to investors and negotiating development contracts.
The complexities of investment rights are also evident at al-Malki Mall in Damascus. On 6 September 2026, the governorate disclosed that the project had been covered by a 20-year investment contract signed with businessman Ghali Hakim in 2007. It was later vacated and handed over to investor Wasim Qattan in 2018, during the Assad era.
After the regime fell, the National Committee for Combating Illicit Gains decided to end Qattan’s control of the project and replace him with the sovereign fund in the investment contract. The governorate signed a new addendum with the fund, alongside a partnership agreement giving the original investor, Ghali Hakim, a share of the profits in settlement of his financial claims.
The Damascus governorate said the settlement had been reviewed by the State Council and the State Lawsuits Administration. Continuing the contract under amended terms provided the legal basis for not putting the project out to a new public tender, while retaining the investment fee payable to the governorate and subjecting it to annual financial review.
Investment rights in this case are divided between the governorate as the public owner, the fund as a party to the operating contract, and the former investor, who received a profit share under the settlement. The amended contracts determine each party’s financial rights.
The fund’s activities also expanded into health services and manufacturing. In August 2026, its subsidiary Suruh Holding signed an agreement to rehabilitate 14 public hospitals with InterHealth Canada, which specialises in managing and developing health institutions.
The Syrian Automobile Manufacturing Co., which is affiliated with the fund, also announced a partnership with China’s Yutong Group to establish a local vehicle industry and transfer technology. Insufficient financial details were disclosed to determine the financing shares and returns in either project.
In a report published by Agence France-Presse on 23 July 2026, Syrian economist Karam Shaar, founder of the economic consultancy bearing his name, described the sovereign fund as a “black box,” saying it represented one of the most important tests of transparency and governance for Syria’s new administration.
Shaar warned that settlements with Assad-era businessmen, despite their importance in maintaining economic activity, could pave the way for a return to crony capitalism. Ahmad al-Riz, a researcher at The Syria Report, questioned how state assets offered to foreign investors were selected, given the opacity surrounding the fund’s structure and decision-making.
In a study published by the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy on 6 August 2026, Syrian economic researcher Joseph Daher argued that the transitional authorities’ economic policies strengthened the role of big capital and allowed new forms of patronage to emerge, amid the concentration of powers in institutions linked to the presidency and the limited publicly announced criteria for selecting investors.
Daher pointed to settlements with businessmen from the former regime and the restructuring of chambers of commerce and economic institutions. He argued that these trends could strengthen the influence of economic elites at the expense of productive sectors and more vulnerable social groups, and called for asset recovery and accountability for economic crimes to be incorporated into the transitional justice process.
These warnings come against the backdrop of the World Bank’s estimate, published on 21 October 2025, that rebuilding Syria would cost about $216 billion. Direct physical damage between 2011 and 2024 reached $108 billion, making the management of public property and the recovery of wealth linked to the former regime central to economic recovery efforts.
As the fund’s portfolio expands and it becomes a partner in telecommunications, industry, property and services, it is increasingly important to establish how much revenue reaches the public treasury, how much profit the fund retains for reinvestment, and how its stakes are valued and its contracts monitored. Assets inherited from the Assad era are now part of long-term economic arrangements that could affect the distribution of wealth and influence in the coming years.
With the asset inventory and the settlement of ownership still underway, the total value of the fund’s wealth remains undisclosed. Details of its stakes and contracts continue to emerge piecemeal through partner companies’ disclosures. Publishing financial accounts, ownership records and investment returns is necessary to establish the state’s and Syrians’ share in these properties, and the extent to which oversight institutions can ensure they are managed in the interests of the wider economy during reconstruction.