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2014 Review

Skanska racks up five at 2014 CEEQA Gala as Kim Wilde rolls back the years

13_G82B4994Swedish real estate developer and construction firm Skanska dominated the annual industry awards for commercial real estate in New Europe, picking up five awards for the second year running at the 11th edition of the CEEQA Gala in Warsaw, in the presence of more than 600 business leaders and senior industry professionals from more than 40 countries, as legendary entertainer Kim Wilde rolled back the years with a stunning show and young Polish star Natalia Sikora stole the limelight.

Organiser Richard Hallward, founder and chairman of CEEQA, said “An acoustic set by one of my teen idols, Kim Wilde, was special, really among the best concerts we’ve had at CEEQA. Who doesn’t like Kids in America acoustic!”

What a show we had from the Boomtown Rats and Bob Geldof, legendary, it was a surprise pick for an event like CEEQA but the crowd really loved it . Being a child of the 70s/80s I did too!”

Lifetime Achievement in Real Estate – Ghelamco founder Paul Gheysens

The recipient of the eleventh CEEQA award for Lifetime Achievement in Real Estate was Paul Gheysens, founder and president of leading international real estate development company Ghelamco, in recognition of his services to the real estate sector and his company’s extensive and award winning achievements in the Central & Eastern European market place. The vision of Gheysens led the company through many successes including expansion into Central Europe and Russia, as well as the recent completion of the Ghelamco Arena multi-functional stadium in Ghent which has been awarded for its interior design and was chosen from 18 competitors as the best 18 stadiums worldwide of the Year 2013.

The award is given each year to a figure who has made a significant and influential contribution to the New Europe real estate sector and beyond. For a full report on the award and Paul Gheysens’ career visit our Paul Gheysens Lifetime of Achievement page.

2014 Award winners: business excellence, vision and ambition rewarded

Skanska Commercial Development Europe scooped the awards for Developer of the Year and overall Green Leadership for the second year in succession at CEEQA 2014, as well as overall Company of the Year and company president Nicklas Lindberg took home the award for Industry Professional of the Year for, while Skanska SA were named Construction Company of the Year also for the second year in succession. The awards add to their two RealGreen Awards won at CEEQA@Mipim in March, making an unprecedented total of seven awards in one year.

1517030_335300_florentinum_iluThe sector’s main industry awards are for business achievement across 18 countries in Central & Eastern Europe and Southeast Europe and are organised each year to recognise business excellence and to showcase the achievements and opportunities of the New Europe real estate sector to the regional and international investment arena.

In the building awards section Galeria Katowicka in Katowice, Poland (Neinver) triumphed, winning two awards for Retail Development of the Year and overall Building of the Year CEE, the Office Develoment of the Year award was won jointly by Floreasca Park in Bucharest (Portland Trust) and Florentinum in Prague (Penta Investments), Promenada in Floreasca City was named Building of the Year SEE and Bristol Hotel Odessa won the award for Hotel, Leisure & Residential Development of the Year.

2014 CEEQA Review

Other major company award winners on the night were Tristan Capital Partners (Investor of the Year and joint overall Company of the Year), Prologis (Industrial Developer), Helaba (Lender) and Dentons (Legal & Financial Services), Arcadis EC Harris (now Arcadis) with the award for Development Services Company of the Year for the third time in succession, ECE Projektmanagement (Property Management) and Balmain Asset Management were the first recipients of the new Rising Star Award. In the Agent Award categories JLL picked up awards for Office Agency and Capital MarketsCushman & Wakefield was named Retail & Leisure Agency and Colliers International chipped in as they regularly do with the Industrial Agency award.

Deeper green

The year’s RealGreen Awards for innovation and leadership in green building had been presented a few weeks earlier at the annual CEEQA@Mipim New Europe Cocktail. In addition to Skanska CDE‘s awards for RealGreen Company and Realgreen Building of the Year (Malta House in Poznan, Poland), the award for RealGreen Investor of the Year was DEKA Immobilien and the award for RealGreen Service Provider went to Arup. For a full list of CEEQA 2014 award winners visit our 2014 Winners page.

 Entertainment & Charity

Renowned for a string of global hits including Kids in AmericaKeep Me Hanging OnYou Came and Cambodia, legendary performer Kim Wilde lit up a night of celebration with a unique and memorable acoustic set following the gala dinner and awards ceremony that had the crowd jumping.84_G82B5699

Guests at the event raised funds for charity in a spot-the-award competition for a prize of a four day spa break in Poland’s Masury district provided by Dr Irena Eris Spa Hotel Wzgorza Dylewskie. Entertainment also included Polish DJ group SOMADJ Dred, the Dziubek Band brass orchestra and pianist Albert Kurowski.

Decision makers

Our gratitude to this year’s jury members for their time, knowledge, expertise and patience. Comprised of senior representatives of market leading companies, places on the jury are rotated each year among developers, investors, lenders, advisors and services providers, with five major international agents operating across the region retaining permanent seats on the jury: CBREColliers InternationalCushman & WakefieldJLL and Knight Frank.

In a process closely supervised by Deloitte, jurors decide the shortlist in all award categories through a rigorous assessment and scoring of more than 500 entries from across the sector. The shortlist for the main CEEQA awards as well as the winners of the four RealGreen awards are announced each year at the Mipim global real estate fair in Cannes, before the jury panel convenes in Warsaw to select the final winners of the CEEQA awards preceding the CEEQA Gala.

Special reports

Special report tie-ins to the CEEQA 2014 Gala were published by the Financial Times and WBJ Observer. The 8-page FT-CEEQA Property Special Report tie-in with CEEQA published each year on the day of the CEEQA Gala in print and online is one of the highlights of the CEEQA programme, shining a global light on the key issues, trends, companies and people of the New Europe property sector. The 2014 FT-CEEQA report focused primarily on the causes and effects of the deep pipeline in the Warsaw office market, the post-crisis recovery of the Bucharest market, and the the 2014 CEEQA Lifetime Achievement award winner Paul Gheysens.

The annual WBJ Observer-CEEQA pre-Gala report provided an in depth review of the important trends affecting the market place, including the impact of the digital revolution in real estate addressed by the 2014 CEEQA@Mipim Insight Summit.

Insight summit: The Digital Revolution in Real Estate

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Online retail is in the foot hills of its evolution and pioneering stages of development, it is virtually impossible to imagine what it will look like 20, 30, 100 years the same way the same way we couldn’t imagine email, the internet and smart phones 30 years ago − but one thing is certain, it will need exponentially more distribution centres, and different kinds of distribution centres and storage centres to those we know today, while traditional shopping centres are going to need to adapt significantly, at significant investment outlay, to keep pace, or to survive.

So said Amazon’s EMEA Real Estate head Raymond Paetzmann, and so said a panel of international commercial real estate and retail experts at the CEEQA@Mipim Insight Summit in Cannes in March 2014. For a full report on this important insight summit visit our Digital Revolution in Real Estate page.

Full details of CEEQA 2014 award winners and short listed candidates are on the CEEQA website. Our congratulations to all award winners and our thanks to all participants, sponsors and partners for another successful CEEQA.

 
 

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