Prologis offers to buy Duke Realty in $23.7 billion deal as warehouse demand soars

(Reuters) -Prologis Inc, a warehouse real estate company, said on Tuesday it had offered to buy its smaller peer Duke Realty Corp in an all-stock deal valued at $23.7 billion, as it looks to benefit from the booming demand for industrial space.

The deal comes at a time when Prologis is struggling to keep up with an uptick in demand from companies looking to park their finished products in warehouses amid a supply chain crunch.

“The relevant supply in the markets that we care about are extremely tight,” the company said in a call with analysts last month, as customers continue to compete for the little space that remains.

Storage space requirement, especially from e-commerce firms including Amazon.com Inc, has seen a jump as the pandemic has prompted consumers to switch to online shopping.

San Francisco-California based Prologis leases logistics facilities to about 5,800 customers including Amazon.com Inc, BMW AG, and FedEx Corp.

Prologis said it was reiterating its offer after Duke rejected a proposal, made in private, earlier this month.

The company’s offer values Duke, an owner and operator of industrial real estate, at $61.68 per share – an over 29% premium on its stock’s closing price on Monday.

Duke did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment.

Its shares jumped 22% in premarket trading.

(Reporting by Uday Sampath and Nathan Gomes in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich)