Duke Realty Rejects Prologis' $24B Takeover Offer

UPDATE, MAY 12, 4:30 P.M. ET: The day after Prologis publicized its takeover bid, Duke Realty Trust rejected the all-stock offer, calling it "insufficient" and largely unchanged from Prologis' November proposal. The original story about the offer is below.

Industrial giant Prologis is trying to snap up fellow industrial REIT Duke Realty Trust in a deal valuing the latter at roughly $24B.

Prologis first made a buyout offer in November, The Wall Street Journal reports, but Duke did not engage. Prologis upped its bid last week, though Duke rejected it the same day. As part of the proposed deal, shareholders of Prologis would receive 0.466 shares of Prologis stock for each Duke share owned. 

“We are confident that the proposed combination will be a win-win for our respective shareholders,” Prologis co-founder and CEO Hamid Moghadam said, per the WSJ. 

Prologis, the biggest industrial and logistics property owner in the world, has made similar moves in Europe. In March, it made a bid for Blackstone-owned urban logistics business Mileway, offering more than €21B ($23B, £18B). Had it gone forward, it would have been the largest deal ever for a nonlisted real estate portfolio. Prologis is expecting significant increases in industrial rents, predicting in February a jump of 10% in prices through 2022. 

Duke — the largest domestic-only logistics REIT in the country — reported renewing tenants saw their annualized net rents go up nearly 50% in the first quarter of this year. The firm has also reduced its exposure to Amazon and noted it expects other companies will pick up any slack during its first-quarter earnings call.

Amazon has signaled it is shifting to building and owning its own facilities, having previously been the largest private occupier of warehouse space in the United States.