Mark Ruffley has been appointed chief executive officer of United Properties Company, the joint venture between Old Mutual Properties, the international property services company from South Africa, and the Savola Group, one of Saudi Arabia’s leading industrial companies.

United Properties, which provides property services across the greater Middle Eastern region, manages the projects and assets of the Saudi shareholders who currently have 14 developments worth SAR 4 billion (US$1 billion) under way or in planning. The company also manages projects and portfolios of non-shareholder entities and will have an area of 180 000m2 under its management by mid-2006.

Before joining United Properties, Ruffley gained extensive experience in property management and leasing. He had overall responsibility for retail property management, asset management, consulting and leasing of multi-billion rand portfolios including 90 South African shopping centres with more than 5 000 tenants.  As executive retail director of Broll Property Group, he liaised directly with owners and asset managers on every aspect of running large regional shopping centres.

Before joining Broll, he was managing director of Marriott Retail and a director of Marriott Property Services and of SA Retail Ltd, the specialist fund listed on the JSE Securities Exchange. 

Ruffley was also the national asset manager for Richway Retail Properties (Ltd), which at the time was the largest JSE listed specialised retail property fund.

He was also one of the original co-owners of Gateway Theatre of Shopping site in Umhlanga, and worked closely with Old Mutual Properties on developing and leasing of the centre, today a flagship in the Old Mutual retail property portfolio and a winner of international awards.

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ISSUED FOR United Properties

BY Michael Kerkhoff & Associates

INQUIRIES  Mark Ruffley +966 265 75260

                    Mike Kerkhoff   +27 21 4245280