Robert Neale FRICS

Robert has worked in the commercial real estate industry since 1982 based in cities including London, Brussels and currently Prague and Bucharest since 1991.

After an agency background with Healey & Baker in 1993 (now Cushman & Wakefield), he created the development and asset management company Portland Trust in 1998. Portland Trust has been in partnership with US property and fund management group Ares Management, L.P. (formerly AREA Property Partners) since 1999. Ares currently has assets under management of over $160 billion and provides equity capital jointly with Portland Trust to purchase development projects, under-managed assets with refurbishment potential and undercapitalised companies in central and eastern Europe. Together, Ares and Portland Trust have developed or refurbished over 800,000 m2 of commercial space in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania.

Better known projects include Metropole Zlicin (one of the first major malls in Prague), Bucharest Business Park (the first A-class business park in Bucharest), Floreasca Park (which in 2014 won the CEEQA Office Development of the Year and the CEEQA RealGreen Building of the Year, CEEQA Green Leadership Award and CIJ Investment transaction of the year in 2015), Oregon Park (which won the CEEQA Overall Building of the Year SEE in 2018) and more recently the new ING Bank HQ, EXPO Business Park in Bucharest.