Kingfisher has appointed Ian Playford, chief executive of western Europe and Russia at landlord Parkridge Holdings, as its new group property director.

Playford will join the DIY giant, which owns B&Q, on October 19. He will sit on Kingfisher’s retail board, and will be responsible for “maximising the economic returns” from Kingfisher’s £3.2bn international property portfolio, and support the retailer’s store opening plans in Europe.

Playford joined Parkridge in 2006 to expand its retail business in France, Italy, Russia and Spain.

He has also worked at property consultants King Sturge, as well as Aviva.

Kingfisher’s group chief executive Ian Cheshire said: “I am delighted to have secured the appointment of someone with Ian’s breadth of experience. His background in international property development is clearly important to an international retailer like Kingfisher. In addition, his skills as an asset manager, in maximising the usage of property assets and driving the optimum returns from them, will play a key part in our ‘Delivering Value’ strategy to deliver a step-change in value to shareholders.”

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