Founder of Parkridge to receive CEE Lifetime Achievement Award

John Cutts, the founder of commercial property developer Parkridge, and also Vice Chairman Europe of leading global warehouse developer ProLogis, will attend the annual Central & European Real Estate Quality Awards gala dinner and awards ceremony at the Hilton Warsaw Hotel on 27th February to receive the sector's annual CEE Lifetime Achievement Award.

With the 2007 nominations for the sector's most important business awards now closed and being prepared for the Jury to review, the announcement of this year's winner of the CEE Lifetime Achievement Award provides a timely boost for the event and for the sector. The award is given each year for a significant and durable contribution to the real estate investment sector in Central & Eastern Europe and internationally.

The Parkridge group of companies is focused on development opportunities in the industrial warehousing, business centre, retail warehouse, shopping centre, residential and leisure sectors. With 120 staff operating from offices in the UK, Poland, France, Italy, Russia, Ukraine, Spain and Luxembourg, Parkridge currently has around €2.5bn of developments underway. John Cutts boasts a strong track record in property development; having originally trained as a surveyor, Cutts went on to lead the development arm of Wilson Bowden before launching industrial specialist, Kingspark, in 1993. Kingspark was later acquired by US giant, ProLogis, with whom Cutts spent three years as part of the deal, before founding Parkridge. Following a swift expansion programme during which Parkridge established a thriving industrial, retail and mixed-use portfolio, Parkridge sold its industrial assets to ProLogis in February 2007, facilitating further growth throughout Central & Eastern Europe and beyond.
Previous winners of the award, which is sponsored by the Financial Times, include Cor Van Zadelhoff (founder of DTZ Zadelhoff), Sandor Demján (founder and chairman of developer TriGranit Development Corporation), David Mitzner (founder and president of investor Apollo Rida) and Eugene Golub (founder and president of Golub & Co and Quinlan Private Golub).

Commenting on the Lifetime Achievement award John Cutts said:

"I am flattered to receive this award from the CEE real estate sector. It is an exciting sector and I have thoroughly enjoyed my involvement. Having made a hopefully positive contribution to the built environment in the region, I hope we will continue to do so in the future."

Richard Hallward, head of the Imagine Events, organiser of the awards in association with the Financial Times, and the sector's foremost magazine Estates News, said:

"We are very pleased and honoured that Mr Cutts has accepted the award and will be attending the event. Each year we consult widely across the sector and a few names come up that have had a significant and lasting impact, and John Cutts is certainly one of those. It's good for the sector, he is one of the sector's giants so people will be keen to see and meet him, and he follows in the footsteps of a number of other giants of the sector."

Preceding the event on the morning of 27th February the organisers will also host The Green Debate, a CEE Insight forum on environmental sustainability in Central & Eastern European real estate sponsored by Colliers International.