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Two U.S. industrial giants are pursuing behemoth status with a merger.
Prologis has come to terms to buy DCT Industrial Trust for $8.4B, including debt, at a time industrial across the globe is booming.
DCT shareholders are expected to receive 1.02 shares for each Prologis share, valuing the deal at nearly $68/DCT share, the Wall Street Journal reports. That is a 16% premium over Friday's DCT closing share price.
San Francisco-based Prologis, which has a market value of $36B and owns or co-owns 683M SF, is the largest owner of distribution and logistics centers in the U.S. Denver-based DCT owns 71M SF of industrial properties.
The purchase will allow Prologis to gain a deeper foothold in high-growth industrial markets, including Southern California, San Francisco, Seattle, South Florida, New York and New Jersey, according to a statement by Prologis.
“DCT markets are 100% aligned with our markets,” Prologis CEO Hamid Moghadam said in an interview with Bloomberg. “There's perfect alignment between the portfolios. Think of DCT as a smaller, U.S.-focused version of Prologis. In the U.S. we're very similar — the same kinds of customers, the same customers in many cases.”
Industrial is riding a crest of four major trends, according to a recent JLL report, including a thrust by the White House for infrastructure improvements and trade negotiations, the revolution of e-commerce, the transformation of how American consumers shop and receive merchandise, and the push to move distribution points closer to urban centers and last-mile delivery nodes.
DCT CEO Philip Hawkins is expected to join Prologis' board of directors.
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