Prologis Reportedly Interested In Buying GLP, Precluding Record IPO
The biggest initial public offering in real estate history may not happen after all.
Prologis has expressed interest in purchasing the U.S. operations of Singapore-based GLP, Bloomberg reports. GLP had previously been considering an IPO for that portion of its business, reportedly backed by Citigroup and Goldman Sachs and targeting a $20B valuation.
GLP owns 185M SF of warehouse space in the U.S. and has $64B in assets under management worldwide, but the publicly traded Prologis dwarfs it in both categories. According to its first-quarter report, Prologis owns 457M SF in the U.S. out of 772M SF worldwide, with $97B worth of total assets under management.
Prologis is no stranger to massive acquisitions, having purchased DCT Industrial Trust for $8B last year. In October, it also sold $1.1B worth of distribution centers (a portfolio it jointly owned with Norges Bank) to Mapletree Investments. Prologis counts Amazon as its largest tenant, with the e-commerce industry leader also making up a large portion of GLP's portfolio.
Discussions around a potential deal are preliminary, Bloomberg reports, and GLP is reportedly still strategizing around an IPO.
