US real estate giant Prologis has called on shareholders in FTSE 100 rival Segro to engage with its £12.6bn takeover bid, arguing the deal offers a “substantial upfront premium” and access to a larger global footprint of data centres.
Prologis, a real estate investment trust (REIT) based in San Francisco, claimed that “constructive engagement… remains the best path for the board of Segro,” which has sought to fight off the takeover interest in recent weeks.
Segro has piled investment into data centres in recent years and claims its estate is far more valuable than that of Prologis.
The FTSE 100 firm issued a strongly-worded rebuttal of the takeover bid on Wednesday, describing the 925p per share offer as “opportunistic, one-sided and inadequate”.
Firms wrestle over data centre portfolio
In a presentation to Segro shareholders, Prologis claimed that it is offering the chance to “benefit from a more experienced, larger and better-capitalised data centre platform”.
The US firm said its proposal to combine the two firms into a mammoth investment trust would give Segro shareholders a “substantial upfront premium”.
The deal would also support economic growth in the UK through “continued investment in strategic logistics infrastructure, strengthening supply chain resilience and creating long-term economic opportunity,” it claimed.
Setting out its opposition to the takeover bid to investors on Wednesday, Segro unveiled a joint venture with a London-based data centre firm to develop a new data centre in Paris.
Prologis has hit out at Segro’s “reliance” on joint ventures, which it said forces the firm to “give away significant value and upside to… partners while, unlike Prologis, not earning any fees or promotes that would amplify returns”.
Segro slams ‘opportunistic’ proposal
The appeal to shareholders comes comes just a day after London-listed Segro launched a rebuttal Prologis’ takeover proposal in front of shareholders, claiming it wanted to “take advantage” of the hit its share price had taken as a result of the Iran war.
The offer would see Segro investors exchange 100 per cent of their shares in the firm for a “materially lower shareholding in Prologis’ different portfolio,” it said.
The two parties are at odds over the premium offered by Prologis’ 925p per share bid. This offered a nearly 25 per cent premium on Segro’s closing share price at the time of the offer.
Segro cut its net asset value to 905p per share on Wednesday, down from 925p, but claimed that its multi-billion pound investment pipeline will add at least 200p per share of value.
The property firm took £53m in new headline rent in the first half of 2026, compared to £31m last year, in what it described as a “very encouraging start to the year”.
Shares in Segro inched up by 0.2 per cent to 867p on Thursday, leaving the stock up 21 per cent in the year to date.