Prologis Inc Offers to Buy Duke Realty

Prologis Inc, the world's largest owner of storage space, said it has offered to acquire Duke Realty Corp in a $24 million deal. This is a vote of confidence in the e-commerce business when investors are nervous about its growth.

Prologis manages a global network of 1 billion square feet of warehouses and distribution centers, including facilities owned and operated by retail and logistics companies such as Amazon.com Inc, Home Depot Inc, and FedEx Corp. 

The company said that it had made a $23.7 billion unsolicited all-stock offer to Duke after trying to convince the company to participate in private negotiations for more than five months.

Industrial real estate has become one of the highest performing commercial real estate sectors in recent years due to the explosive growth of online commerce. As people spend more time shopping at home, the pandemic has further boosted the sector.

Due to Amazon's quarterly loss, stocks of industrial real estate companies such as Prologis and Duke also went down. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy surprised the industrial market when he said  the company was "no longer striving for physical or staff abilities."

Prologis is continuously expanding its industry footprint through acquisitions. The company acquired Liberty Property Trust for $13 billion in 2020 and DCT Industrial Trust Inc. for $8.5 billion in 2018.