It’s the official end of the summer: Schools are back in session in the UAE (watch out for busier-than-usual traffic) and Egypt’s North Coast is quickly emptying as August comes to a close. Students in Saudi Arabia — among others in the region — already bid farewell to the summer earlier in the month.
The summer wind-down hasn’t done much to sway the flow of news in our neck of the woods and beyond. US forces targeted two Iranian rocket launchers on Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz, as we note in this morning’s War Watch. Meanwhile, we’re keeping a close eye on the regional events calendar, as major events like Leap in Saudi Arabia press ahead, giving reason to hope for a business-as-usual fall window.
Across the pond: Ins. broker and consulting firm Aon is closing in on an agreement to acquire KKR-owned ins. broker USI for around USD 17 bn, expanding Aon's ability to serve midsize businesses. The move — the latest in a spate of big exits for KKR — is projected to be accretive to earnings per share starting in 2028. –Salma
Gulf hotels refused to pull their most obvious lever when conflict with Iran emptied their rooms in 1H 2026. Dubai occupancy fell 30.3% y-o-y to an average of 56.4% in 1H, but the average daily rate slipped just 7% to AED 701, according to Dubai-based real estate consulting firm Cavendish Maxwell’s 1H 2026 report. Rather than cutting prices to fill their rooms cheaply, operators took the hit on empty rooms.
That strategy wasn’t just a Dubai quirk, but rather a deliberate, region-wide strategy. “Dubai is not entirely unique in this regard. Similar strategies have played out across Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Oman,” Cavendish Maxwell Research Manager Ali Siddiqui tells EnterpriseAM. In Qatar, occupancy fell 15.3% through June while ADR declined 5.2%; Oman saw a comparable 15.1% occupancy drop, yet ADR actually rose 2.6%; and Saudi Arabia, Siddiqui said, “benefits from a deeper domestic demand base and a steady flow of religious tourism” and proved most resilient of all, with occupancy down just 2.7% as ADR gained 1%.
Holding rates through a demand collapse protects the revenue base for the recovery; discounting to chase occupancy risks a price war that is hard to climb out of. Across the region, hotels chose to protect their rates. Where demand softened and competition bit, businesses leaned on “targeted promotions and offers to stimulate demand,” Siddiqui tells us — but only as a last resort. “This reflects a deliberate prioritization, with rates typically being the last lever operators are willing to surrender.”
Rates weren’t the only line they held — they kept most of their people, too. Tourism employment across MENA is set to fall 5% this year according to our calculations from World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) and Oxford Economics data — a fraction of the collapse in visitor spending. That gap is what the WTTC means when it describes employment as “sticky — it does not necessarily fall to the same extent as spending,” the council tells us. Operators are holding onto trained staff through a shock they are betting is short, because letting them go and rehiring later costs more.
Why this matters: Both lines the sector is holding run on the same clock, and Siddiqui is candid about where it stops. “We would not read Dubai’s performance as evidence that GCC hotels are immune to a demand shock. What it does illustrate is that rate discipline tends to hold until it no longer can,” he said. “The critical variable is duration. The longer demand remains subdued, the harder it becomes to protect ADR without ceding market share and eroding total revenue. At that point, the trade-off shifts, and volume starts to take precedence over rate.” The same logic governs the payrolls: hold as long as the runway lasts, then start cutting. The resilience in the 1H numbers is a wager that the shock is short.
The divergence: By geography and segment
Luxury was the hardest-hit segment: The hotels that suffered most were the ones leaning hardest on long-haul international travel: Dubai’s luxury and upper-upscale properties, where occupancy averaged 51.2% and 51.8% in 1H. The mid-market held up far better, with upper-midscale hotels’ occupancy at 65.7% because its guests come from a broader base. “Domestic and intra-GCC travel has undoubtedly provided a floor for the sector, but how much of a floor, and why, varies considerably by market," Siddiqui says. “The wider the range of demand sources a market can draw from, the better positioned it is to protect occupancy and, ultimately, revenue,” he adds.
The UAE and Saudi saw the sharpest divergence between visitor spending and employment. The UAE is expected to shed some 46k jobs in 2026, a 4.9% drop, while international visitor spending is forecast to fall by some 31% y-o-y to USD 39.2 bn. Meanwhile, employment fell 4.7% in Saudi, alongside a visitor spending decrease of 26%.
In the UAE, both lines — price and payroll — were held up by the cushions of 2025 earnings and government support. “Most players entered 2026 from a position of considerable financial strength following a very strong 2025, which gives them some runway to absorb short-term pressure before making structural workforce decisions.” And in Dubai, government support played a critical role — Dubai’s hoteliers kept rates and rosters intact with the help of AED 2.5 bn in government support. That support was delivered in two tranches: An initial AED 1 bn package in April deferring hotel fees and the Tourism Dirham (a fee the government charge per room to back the sector), followed by a larger AED 1.5 bn suspending the Tourism Dirham and municipal fees on hotel and restaurant bills, plus waivers on selected event charges, according to Cavendish Maxwell’s report.
For Saudi Arabia, the resilience was also driven by a strong 2025, but other organic reasons helped. The Kingdom didn’t roll out targeted tourism sector support. Its tourism rests on domestic leisure and price-inelastic religious travel — a base Siddiqui calls “structural and deeply embedded,” shaped by “the religious tourism calendar, combined with a growing domestic leisure culture.” Meanwhile, the UAE’s aviation-dependent hubs absorbed the brunt. Hospitality advisory services firm HVS forecasts the same pattern city by city: The steepest declines in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Ras Al Khaimah, with Makkah and Madinah expected to stay closest to 2025 levels on stable religious demand, and Doha, Muscat, and Manama in between.
Outside the GCC, the picture is rosier: While the GCC contracts, North Africa is having a different year. By our calculations from the WTTC data, tourism employment across Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya is set to rise around 2.4% in 2026, with visitor spending up close to 4% — and Egypt, the region’s largest tourism workforce, has been adding the most jobs in absolute terms even as it grows more slowly than its neighbors. The economies far from the airspace disruption and the Hormuz risk premium are not living the same year as the Gulf hubs.
The larger picture
The resilience the sector is showing so far doesn’t mean the shock itself wasn’t severe. Passenger traffic at Dubai International Airport fell 31.7% over the first five months of the year to roughly 26.6 mn as several international carriers suspended or cut services, Cavendish Maxwell reported. HVS estimates the conflict could cost the wider Middle East 23-38 mn international arrivals this year — USD 34-56 bn in lost visitor spending. The timing sharpened the blow: March to May is the Gulf’s highest-yield window, packed with religious travel, spring leisure, and business travel, and HVS notes peak-period demand lost to those months cannot be recovered later in the year. EnterpriseAM has tracked the aviation dimension since the spring, when Gulf carriers began rerouting around closed airspace and rebuilding schedules under partial restrictions.
The shock in numbers: The Middle East is the only region in the world the WTTC and Oxford Economics expect to contract in 2026, with tourism’s total contribution to GDP forecast to shrink 14.5% even as every other region grows. International visitor spending is set to drop by a quarter or more in 2026 — the UAE down around 31%, Saudi Arabia 26%, Qatar 32% — while the contribution-to-GDP contraction runs to less than half that.
Why the gap? WTTC’s answer is that the headline GDP figure captures far more than tourists’ hotel and restaurant bills. Total tourism GDP “includes not only international spending but also domestic spending, supply chain, capital investment etc.,” the council tells EnterpriseAM — the same forces Siddiqui describes from the ground, where domestic and regional demand and a pipeline of investment that has not stopped are cushioning the fall in international arrivals.
What now?
“The most immediate and trackable signal will be airline route resumptions and capacity additions,” Siddiqui tells us. “Airlift and hotel demand are correlated, and when carriers recommit to routes they have suspended or reduced, this should be an early indicator of improving hotel demand and occupancy,” he says.
REMEMBER- Carriers that cut Dubai routes in 1H are scheduled to resume in 2H, and Emirates is already operating at roughly 85% of pre-conflict capacity. But flights returning is not the same as demand returning — hotel demand has lagged the aviation rebound, and HVS argues recovery will be driven more by confidence than connectivity. “Once confidence improves and travel patterns begin to normalize, we would expect occupancy to recover first, as operators compete to rebuild volumes. ADR recovery is likely to follow,” Siddiqui tells us.
The risk in the meantime is that the cushion gives way before the recovery comes to fruition. “In the interim, the domestic and intra-GCC demand base that has cushioned performance in 1H 2026 will need to remain resilient,” Siddiqui says. “If those buffers weaken before international demand recovers, the sector could face greater pressure in the second half of the year.” Cavendish Maxwell forecasts full-year Dubai occupancy of 60.4-66.2% and ADR of AED 600-675, both below 2025's record. Three things will decide where in that range the year lands: whether the Dubai fee waivers are extended or allowed to lapse, whether the 4Q winter season and route resumptions arrive together, and whether confidence returns before operators’ dry powder runs out.
The long-term investment case, for now, is holding. The development pipeline “is still moving,” Siddiqui said, pointing to Capella's planned Dubai opening as evidence of “the enduring long-term investment case for the city.” The caution is at the front end — "some investors are taking longer to commit to new projects, reassessing feasibility assumptions,” but he frames it as “a pause rather than a reversal.”
In the first US strike on Iran in over a month, US forcestargetedtwo IRGC rocket launchers on Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz. CENTCOM called yesterday’s action preemptive, saying the launchers were being readied to fire rockets carrying naval mines into the waterway — an “imminent threat” a week after it finished clearing the strait’s international lanes.
The IRGC said several were killed and wounded on the island and vowed “response and punishment,” which came at dawn today: Ballistic missiles at the Muwaffaq Salti air base in Jordan, eight of which Amman says it intercepted, with no significant impact reported, though Tehran claims casualties. Iran’s regular army separately claimed a drone strike on Al Minhad air base in the UAE, which Abu Dhabi has not addressed.
Iran named Adnoc-linked vessels among 45 tankers it blacklisted for breaking its rules on crossing the Strait of Hormuz, warning it would act against any ship caught transferring cargo with them, Reuters reports. Named vessels risk fines, detention, and cargo confiscation, and any ship caught doing a ship-to-ship transfer with one can be added itself. Owners can petition for removal, though Iran hasn’t spelled out its compliance rules. Iranian MPs are drafting legislation to charge ships a security fee for Hormuz transits, revenue one lawmaker has pitched as rivaling oil income.
This targets the workaround, not just the traffic. Adnoc has built its export strategy around a shuttle model since the war disrupted normal Hormuz transits: Vessels move crude from inside the Gulf to transfer points like Fujairah, where buyers — including Chinese state operators Cosco and CMES, which have avoided the strait entirely — collect it without sending their own ships through the danger zone. That let Adnoc sell more than 100 mn barrels via tenders even as chokepoint traffic collapsed — and it is still running. Adnoc and Kuwait's KPC chartered four VLCCs on the spot market last week to load at Fujairah for Asia, Reuters reports, citing Kpler data and a shipbroker. Each carries about 2 mn barrels.
Washington was working the same lever from the other side.Operation Economic Outcast, unveiled last Monday, sanctions over 60 entities, individuals, and vessels across digital assets, technology, gold, aviation, and shipping, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warning Tehran’s trade partners to sever ties or face expulsion from the USD-based financial system. Every country has “a defined timeline to shut down activities we have identified,” he said — without publishing any of them — and he stopped short of designating the Chinese banks that clear payment for the bulk of Iran's crude. Tehran threatened deeper cuts to Gulf oil exports and has since promised a “strong response to the economic blockade.”
MEANWHILE- Saudi Arabia is exploring a state-backed war and political risk ins. pool to cover ships in the region, with early talks underway with London brokers, the Financial Times reports. It answers a market where insurers have raised prices, restricted coverage, and in some cases refused war cover for chokepoint transits — with underwriters now treating Saudi-linked ships like high-risk Israeli and US assets. The country’s Finance Ministry is weighing up to SAR 700 mn in commercial cover per insured event, with ins. and reins. firms writing the initial layer and the Saudi Export-Import Bank adding USD hundreds of mns in backstop capacity. Saudi Re and Riyadh Re would lead a reinsurer consortium in one version.
As Saudi pushes more exports through Yanbu with both main maritime routes disrupted, a state pool could keep shipowners moving without ins. costs becoming a deterrent. It would cover war, political violence, and terrorism together — a growing need as Houthi attacks blur the line, said Enmetena Advisory's Maximilian Hess.
The trigger: The Houthis put a missile into Bahri’s VLCC Amzan last Monday — 63 nautical miles west of Yanbu, per UKMTO. The militia declared a naval blockade on the Kingdom late last month, and Yanbu has effectively become the only working export corridor — 92% of June's seaborne crude exports and 78% of July's. Aramco is now rerouting barrels east through Sohar in Oman and shifting some Yanbu loadings west to Egypt's Sidi Kerir.
Speaking of drones: A Saudi security delegation met Iraqi officials in Baghdad last Thursday on border control and preventing drone attacks on Saudi targets launched from Iraq, per Ina. It’s the third round since 29 July US-Saudi strikes hit Iran-aligned groups following drone attacks on Saudi energy facilities Riyadh traced to Iraq.
Egypt and Germany turned up to Syria’s biggest business event of the year to court the market. Saudi Arabia turned up to sign contracts. The Damascus International Fair — running from 26 August to 4 September, with some 1k participants from 60 countries — is a snapshot of tiered foreign engagement in Syria’s reconstruction, with Riyadh moving ahead of most other foreign delegations on the ground.
The new showers
Egypt fielded a cross-industry showing spanning food, agriculture, and engineering, Sana reports. Wahat Al-Kunuz, Obour, and Rayyan are among the exhibitors, and Obour export director Mohamed Abdel Wahhab told Sana the company is using B2B meetings in a bid to sign Syrian companies as local agents after a period of absence from the market.
Germany brought 13 companies across consulting, engineering, logistics, medical technology, energy, and fiber optics, Sana reports. Lead-acid battery maker BAE Batterien is eying a return to Syria after 18 years and now says the country commands more of its attention than any other in the region, CEO Jan Ijspeert tells Sana. A high-level German economic delegation led by BMZ State Secretary Niels Annen is due in Damascus a week after the fair opens, a German Economy Ministry spokesperson told the agency.
Saudi leads the pack
But Saudi Arabia is the one leaving with paperwork. More than 50 Saudi companies and four government bodies — including the Saudi Export Development Authority, the Saudi Export-Import Bank, and the Industry Ministry — are at the fair. Syria’s Economy Ministry has already signed a 30-year MoU with Saudi’s Ithraa Group to rehabilitate and operate the Hama Steel Plant, targeting at least 350k tonnes of annual output within four years. That sits on top of last week’s four MoUs Riyadh signed on roads, rail, aviation, and postal services — with a six-month window to identify connection points and five-year implementation terms, Syria’s transport minister said.
The rail track is the most consequential. Riyadh and Ankara want to build a Gulf-to-Europe rail corridor through Jordan and Syria within three to four years, carrying goods, oil, gas, and passengers — a route that closes a roughly 400-km missing section between Syria and Jordan and depends on postwar Syria holding together. Turkey has committed around USD 100 mn to rebuild the route between its border and Aleppo, with a link onward to Damascus.
The data corridor is also in the works: A digital infrastructure agreement expected to be signed in Riyadh this week would connect submarine cables landing on Syria's coast to networks in Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, creating an alternative Europe-to-Asia data route running through to Oman.
Banking is next: The two countries agreed to launch a joint Saudi-Syrian bank. We previously flagged Saudi Arabia as the most likely entrant in Syria’s banking sector after Qatar — motivated by the need for a direct financial channel for Saudi capital pledges.
ALSO- Flynas Syria — a JV with Syrian Airlines — is close to launch after beginning licensing and recruitment, Syria’s civil aviation head Omar Al Hosari tells Asharq Business, with a launch expected before year-end. On postal, Syrian Communications Minister Abdul Salam Haykal told Asharq Business that Saudi companies have already submitted bids to develop Syria's postal service.
All of this stacks onto thereconstruction projects pipeline Saudi Arabia has been building since Investment Minister Khalid Al Falih’s February visit: The SAR 7.5 bn Aleppo International Airport redevelopment financed under the Elaf Fund, STC's national fiber-optic network, and a growing energy footprint that includes Al Harfi’s recent solar project win.
Background
Gulf capital — from the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia — with higher risk appetite and political backing, has been the first to show up in Syria, as purely commercially-driven capital remains cautious. Egypt’s turnout is the first test of how serious its private sector’s interest is, amid a top-level rapprochement between the two countries, we flagged earlier this month. Any official German moves in Syria could serve as a test-case for other European players — European players are showing interest but action is lagging, as banks remain “very restrictive and hesitant” on connecting with Syrian counterparts.
The main constraint hasn’t moved much. Banking friction, correspondent-bank hesitation, and the FATF gray listing still gate execution for everyone showing up in Damascus. Karam Shaar Advisory senior consultant Benjamin Fève has told us the highest priority is rebuilding confidence in the Syrian financial system so foreign correspondent banks reconnect — the missing piece that keeps trade finance, insurance, and profit repatriation challenging for private investors regardless of what MoUs get signed at the fair.
Turkey’s capital market watchdog just tightened the leash on hedge funds — right as MSCI keeps a close eye on how they trade in Istanbul. Turkey’s Capital Markets Board (CMB) updated its investment-fund guidelines on Friday, setting new limits on how much of a company’s freefloat a hedge fund, or several funds under a single wealth manager, can hold.
The new caps scale with freefloat: Funds can hold up to 8% when a company’s freefloat ratio sits below 25%, dropping progressively to just 2% for a freefloat ratio of 75% or more. Funds sharing a portfolio manager or founder are counted as one for these limits, and where hedge fund investors control the company outright, the ceiling drops further to 1% per fund and 2% if more funds under a single management are involved.
The CMB also capped large portfolio positions at 20% of a fund’s book, and single-issuer debt holdings at 10%.
The move comes in response toMSCI’s warning last Juneabout a recurring pattern of possible coordinated trading among funds tied to smaller listed Turkish companies — a dynamic MSCI said could inflate apparent freefloat. MSCI gave Turkey until its November review to show credible progress, or face a formal consultation on how Turkish equities are treated in its indexes.
DATA POINT- The decision impacts about TRY 3.2 tn (USD 66.1 bn) of wealth sitting across Turkey’s 369 hedge funds, per TEFAS data cited by Türkiye Today.
Three of today’s stories are the same story in different clothes: Somebody is getting less for the same asset than they would have a few months — or a few years — ago. Shein is listing in Hong Kong at a quarter of the valuation Mubadala bought into. Qatar is paying up to 50 bps more for a sukuk it has already sold four times this year. And Arab bourses moved 29% more shares in July for 17% less money. Still: The dealflow underneath all of it hasn’t slowed down.
Mubadala is in line for a payout from Shein — because it overpaid. Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala is among the investors whose protection clauses were triggered by Shein’s Hong Kong IPO, which values the fast-fashion giant at up to USD 27 bn — less than half the USD 60-98 bn Mubadala and others paid in during 2022-23, according to the prospectus (pdf). Shein is on the hook for up to USD 3.5 bn in liquidity and bonus shares to close that gap across all eligible holders — nearly double the USD 1.8 bn it is raising in the offering itself at the top of the range. The prospectus doesn’t break out who gets what.
In context: The listing caps a four-year retreat. Shein flirted with New York at a USD 100 bn valuation in 2022, got pushed toward London by political pressure over its trade practices, labor sourcing, and Chinese roots, then stalled there too, waiting on a green light from Beijing that never came in time. It is landing in Hong Kong at roughly a quarter of the original number, squeezed by the end of the de minimis exemption it had used to avoid duties, fresh regulatory probes, and slowing growth. Mubadala bought in during the window when Shein was still being priced as a global consumer champion.
Mubadala’s other appearance today is a happier one: It’s buying control of a US trucking middleman. Mubadala Capital is taking a majority stake in Arrive Logistics, the Austin-based truckload brokerage, with management rolling significant equity into the agreement, according to a statement. Terms and the exact stake were not disclosed. The money is earmarked for new services, hiring, and technology — including further build-out of Arrive’s ARRIVEnow transport management system.
The acquisition is expected to close in 4Q 2026, with ATL Partners, Lead Edge Capital, and other existing backers keeping meaningful stakes alongside management.
Qatar is paying up for money in its own currency. The Qatar Central Bank allocated QAR 5 bn (USD 1.4 bn) of government Ijara Sukuk on behalf of the Finance Ministry last week, split across 2029 and 2030 maturities at 4.75% and 4.90% — and drew just QAR 5.5 bn in bids, a 1.1x bid-to-cover, per the QCB. June’s QAR 6.5 bn issue was covered 2.2x, while May’s QAR 4 bn sale drew 2.9x.
It’s the same paper, but with worse pricing: Qatar has tapped the August 2030 sukuk five times since March, and the yield sat in a tight 4.40-4.50% band from March through June before jumping to 4.90% on 25 August — the sharpest single-auction move of the year. That takes the year'’ Ijara Sukuk total to at least QAR 23.3 bn (USD 6.4 bn).
Why it matters: Investors wanted meaningfully more compensation to hold the same Qatari government debt, and fewer of them were willing to show up at all. That tracks the regional direction of travel — Qatar’s 10-year USD sovereign yield hit about 5% by 21 August, still the Gulf’s lowest, with Abu Dhabi next at 5.2% — even as the region’s local-currency market keeps deepening. Fitch has GCC debt capital markets topping USD 1.3 tn this year, with sukuk at a record 41% share.
Arab bourses traded a lot more stock in July, albeit at lower valuations. Volume across the region’s exchanges rose 28.8% m-o-m to 261.86 bn shares, while the value of those trades fell 16.8% to USD 90.24 bn from USD 108.5 bn, the Arab Monetary Fund said in its monthly capital markets bulletin.
Iraq is almost the entire story on volume: Shares traded on the Iraq Stock Exchange jumped 54.9% to 166.7 bn — nearly two-thirds of everything that changed hands in the region — with Egypt up 13.1% to about 69.3 bn, Arab News reports. The drag on value came from an entirely different set of markets: The AMF named the EGX, Tadawul, Dubai, ADX, and Boursa Kuwait.
ALSO WORTH KNOWING TODAY-
Pickalbatros and Emirati NG9 Holding are putting some USD 180 mn into three hotels with a combined 1.8k rooms in Marsa Alam on Egypt's Red Sea coast, on land Pickalbatros already owns, Asharq Business reports, citing Pickalbatros Chairman Kamel Abou Ali.
UK private credit manager Channel Capital Advisors has bought a minority slice of Magellan’s mezzanine position in Beehive’s UAE SME funding program, joining Goldman Sachs and Magellan in a facility that launched last year at AED 500 mn and has since grown to AED 600 mn, according to a press release. The capital comes from Channel’s newly first-closed Corniche shariah fund, though the release doesn’t say whether Channel’s entry accounts for the increase.
India’s SEPC has given in-principle approval for its Sharjah arm to take 100% of Wintality Petroleum, a UAE trader of refined petroleum products, in an all-share transaction, the Indian press reports. It hands SEPC a direct foothold in UAE fuel trading, well outside its core engineering and infrastructure contracting business. Wintality will become a step-down subsidiary once the swap completes.
MENA venture capital dry powder tops USD 1.45 bn, but nine of every 10 committed USD is still on the sidelines. MENA-focused venture funds have deployed just USD 197 mn of the USD 1.64 bn raised across 17 vehicles since 2024, according to a Magnitt report seen by EnterpriseAM — leaving 88% of committed capital undeployed.
The pile is early, not idle. Venture funds typically deploy over five to seven years, and 10 of the 17 funds Magnitt tracked have committed less than 10% of their target. The pool has also grown fast: Six active funds in 2024 held USD 572 mn combined, with only USD 42 mn out the door. By 2025, 14 funds were targeting USD 1.28 bn, 89% still dry. Three more funds in 1H 2026 added USD 370 mn — all of it undeployed.
The money is going to Saudi Arabia first, the UAE second, and Egypt third, with AI mandates growing. Saudi has drawn the largest share across all three launch years. Of the USD 60 mn that 2026-vintage funds deployed in 1H, USD 33 mn went to Saudi startups and USD 7 mn to the UAE, with USD 20 mn spread across other MENA markets. Four of the 17 funds carry an explicit AI mandate.
The largest funds skew Emirati. BECO Capital's Booster Growth Fund I leads the 2024-1H 2026 cohort at USD 250 mn, followed by Shorooq Partners' Late Stage Growth Fund at USD 200 mn and Oman's Jasoor Fund at USD 180 mn.
Don’t read the 2026 fundraises as war-proof. Magnitt flags that the three funds added this year were likely raised on processes started before the US-Iran conflict, and it expects the war's real drag on new fund formation to surface in 2H 2026 and early 2027 on a six-to-nine-month transmission lag.
Syrian President Ahmed Al Sharaaappointedthe former commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) as a presidential adviser days after the militant group was declared dissolved. The move put an end to the lingering question of whether the SDF would integrate into the new regime, following a series of stalled talks and occasional skirmishes between the regime’s forces and the SDF.
IN CONTEXT- For over a decade, Mazloum Abdi led the SDF, which held control and governance of parts of northern and eastern Syria after playing a critical role in defeating the Islamic State alongside a US-led coalition. The formal dissolution announced last week follows the de facto integration of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (which formed the core of the SDF) within state forces, with its commander, Sipan Hamo, appointed in March as deputy defence minister for the country's eastern territories.
What’s next on integration? Al Sharaa now faces the challenge of resolving the issue of Druze armed groups in southern Syria — an area that saw major violent events last year that left some 1.7k Syrians killed, according to a UN investigation which implicated Syrian government forces, tribal fighters and Druze armed groups. The Druze have been wary of the new government’s Jihadist background, and Israel has been using the minority’s concerns to drive a further wedge with the new Syrian government. In a UN Security Council meeting in June, the special envoy for Syria indicated that “there has been no progress on the implementation of the September 2025 roadmap of confidence-building and reintegration in Suwayda.”
Another integration, but this one is in banking
Visa and Mastercard have formally activated international card payments in Syria for the first time in 15 years. Mastercard indicated that QNB Syria processed the first PoS transaction at an eligible local merchant using an internationally issued Mastercard card following the technical reconnection of Syria’s payments ecosystem to Mastercard’s global network. Visa issued a similar statement announcing its first live transaction in collaboration with Paymera, Fransabank Lebanon, and other partners.
Why this matters: Visa and Mastercard connectivity to the Syrian market showcases that Syria is on the right track when it comes to connectivity to the global banking system — a signal that many investors who are adopting a wait-and-see approach before committing to Syria are watching. The formal activation is also important for the recovery of key consumer-facing sectors in Syria, such as tourism, where travelers typically need to be able to pay with international cards.
Lebanon lays the plumbing for depositor repayment
Lebanon’s central bank wants to know exactly who is owed what, and by whom: Banque du Liban has ordered commercial banks to build a centralized registry mapping every depositor, and every account across the system, Lebanese daily L’Orient Le Jour reports. Under the decision, each depositor gets a single unified ID recognized across institutions, letting the central bank consolidate accounts held by the same person at different banks and in different currencies. BDL says the registry will establish “the actual number of depositors and the volume of their total deposits,” and calculate “the actual cost of the gradual repayment process” envisioned under the draft Financial Stabilization and Deposit Recovery law — the financial gap law the cabinet approved in December 2025 but still stuck in parliament.
The registry would decide the arithmetic of theUSD 80 bn loss-sharing exercisebetween the state, BDL, and the banks. Current proposals cap recoveries at USD 100k per depositor, with the remainder converted into long-term securities, with the cap to be applied per person, not per account or per bank. That means anyone holding deposits across multiple institutions gets one USD 100k refund, which shrinks the total bill BDL and the banks have to fund.
Chinese President Xi Jinping will arrive in Cairo this week for his first state visit in a decade, part of a tour that also takes him to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Kyrgyzstan. The visit is expected to generate new investment and manufacturing MoUs, as Chinese investments are expected to rise by USD 4 bn this year, taking cumulative investment to USD 14 bn, the Egyptian-Chinese Business Council Deputy Chairman Mostafa Ibrahim tells EnterpriseAM.
The data center project is the wild card to watch: Huawei is looking to tie up a chip-and-data-center agreement to stock Egyptian facilities with its AI training and inference silicon, Bloomberg reports, and Washington is reportedly preparing a counter-offer. The precedent to watch: the UAE got fast-lane access to US AI chips and defense tech this summer after walking away from Huawei.
The regional picture: Beijing’s zero-tariff policy for 53 African nations took effect on 1 May and runs until 2028, designed as a fast-track to bilateral FTAs across the continent. Egypt is already using the window: Egyptian exporters signed 17 contracts worth USD 168 mn in the first three months. Morocco is Beijing’s other priority target, but Rabat is dragging its feet, as we've reported.
What to watch this week: The scale and sector mix of the investment agreements coming out of the visit — particularly any data center and manufacturing commitment that positions Egypt as a China-anchored production base for African and Arab markets –- and whether Cairo signals openness to the FTA conversation Rabat is stalling on.
Banque Misr in the crosshairs
The US Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN)has proposedcutting Banque Misr’s UAE branches off from correspondent banking access to US institutions, alleging that the branch processed around USD 1.8 bn between January 2024 and June 2026 for 103 companies that it claims may be linked to Iranian shadow-banking networks.
The proposed sanction is limited to Banque Misr’s UAE branch and its USD transactions with correspondent banks, and doesn’t extend to its Egypt operations or other overseas branches, according to a statement from the Central Bank of Egypt. The Central Bank of the UAE will investigate the flagged period and companies, according to a statement carried by state news agency WAM.
IN CONTEXT- Banque Misr UAE is the first publicly announced financial-sector target of US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s “economic D-Day” campaign against Tehran, Operation Economic Outcast — a global drive to sever Iran’s financial connections by targeting the banks, facilitators, and networks Washington says help the regime evade sanctions and generate revenue.
Sign of the times
Will UAE capital return to Lebanon? The UAE sent its largest business delegation to Beirut in years this week, with Trade Minister Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi leading more than 70 executives and officials for a two-day visit that produced five MoUs, Lebanese daily L’Orient Le Jour reports.
What got signed: The launch of a Lebanese-Emirati Joint Business Council; two chamber-of-commerce tie-ups between Beirut and Mount Lebanon and counterparts in Abu Dhabi and Ras Al Khaimah; and two Elite Agro pacts — one with the American University of Beirut on arid-climate food security research, one with Jarjoura Dakkache & Sons on greenhouse crops. Infrastructure and digitization were on the agenda but yielded no agreements.
Read the political subtext. Lebanese Economy Minister Amer Bisat drew applause when he cited reforms and “the exclusivity of arms in the hands of the state” — a nod to the Hezbollah-disarmament push the Lebanese government is working on under pressure from the US and Israel.
REMEMBER- The UAE isn’t moving in isolation. Saudi Arabia resumed Lebanese exports through the Al Masnaa border crossing last week and is building out a new border-crossing centre, after lifting a five-year ban on Lebanese imports in June at the request of President Joseph Aoun and PM Nawaf Salam.
MENA+ Edition 
Egypt Edition 
UAE Edition 
Saudi Edition 
AI + Innovation (MENA) 
Logistics (MENA) 
Share Issue
