Brookfield Prepares Takeover Bid For £1.2B Logistics Firm

Private equity giant Brookfield is analysing a bid for a London-listed European logistics owner with a portfolio valued at €1.5B (£1.2B)

Brookfield Asset Management said late Monday it was in the early stages of preparing an all-cash offer for Tritax Eurobox. Tritax Eurobox said it had not yet received a bid. 

If a deal goes through, it would be the latest in a string of M&A deals for small and midsized UK-listed companies. And it would be Brookfield’s largest single investment in the European logistics space since its acquisition of Gazeley in 2013.

Outside the UK, Tritax Eurobox owns 23 big-box logistics assets in seven European countries, with Germany, Spain and Italy being its three largest markets. 

Its portfolio was valued at €1.46B as of 31 March, and its portfolio produced €36M of rental income. Two-thirds of its assets are bigger than 500K SF, and about half of its portfolio has a lease length of less than five years. The net initial yield of its portfolio is 4.7%. 

Despite logistics being one of the top-performing sectors within real estate for the past decade, Tritax Eurobox’s shares trade at a discount to the company’s net asset value of about 33% and haven’t traded at a premium since 2022. 

The company’s shares rose about 1% following news of Brookfield’s possible approach, with no price put on any takeover offer. Brookfield now has until 31 July to make a firm takeover proposal or it must walk away and not bid for the company for another six months. 

In May this year Tritax Eurobox’s UK sister company, Tritax Big Box, bought listed company UK Commercial Property REIT in a £924M all-share deal. And in March, LondonMetric bought LXi REIT for £1.9B, creating the UK’s fourth-largest REIT with a £6B portfolio.