LONDON — Prologis, the U.S. logistics real estate company, agreed Tuesday to acquire Segro, the British owner of warehouses and industrial property, in a recommended deal valued at about £14 billion, or roughly $18.8 billion, a transaction that will require the company to be stored, shrink-wrapped, until the deal closes in the first half of 2027.
Under the terms of the deal, Segro shareholders will receive 0.0920 new Prologis shares for each Segro share, with the option to take part of their consideration in cash. Segro’s board rejected an earlier, all-share proposal valued at £12.6 billion on June 23. The combined company would oversee about $269 billion in assets.
Logistics analysts said the storage arrangement had presented an immediate difficulty. Segro describes itself as Europe’s leading owner, manager, and developer of industrial property, which, by the analysts’ reasoning, means that any warehouse in Europe large enough to hold it would have to be owned by it. “You cannot put a company that owns every large shed in Europe into a small shed. We checked,” said Nigel Thursby, a senior fellow at the Midlands Institute of Pallet Studies. “We tried three small sheds.”
As a result, according to Thursby, Segro will be stored inside one of its own warehouses, on the outskirts of Slough, until completion. Segro was shrink-wrapped Tuesday afternoon, palletized, and moved by forklift into Bay 14 of the facility, which it owns, and which it now also occupies. The warehouse, being part of Segro, is itself inside Segro, along with Bay 14, the forklift, and the pallet, an arrangement Thursby said had produced “a building inside a company inside the same building, and a forklift that is not entirely sure which side of the door it is on.” The stored company has been insured against loss, and the insurance policy, being a document, has been filed in a cabinet in the warehouse, which is in Segro, which is in Bay 14.
Dr. Marjorie Teller, director of the Center for Measured Outcomes, said the Center had attempted to measure how much room the company was taking up. “Segro occupies approximately 100.00 percent of the warehouse and the warehouse occupies approximately 100.00 percent of Segro,” Teller said. “These figures cannot both be correct, and yet the building has not collapsed. Further study is needed.” The Center has applied for funding to continue the study at a location to be chosen from a list of warehouses, every one of which, it noted, is currently being stored.
Under the deal, Segro shareholders will also keep any 2026 interim and final dividends the company pays before completion. The dividends are expected to be delivered in boxes, which will be held in a warehouse.
Under the storage plan, the company will be checked weekly for moisture, pests, and drift, and a clipboard has been hung on the shrink-wrap for the purpose. The clipboard was owned, as of Wednesday morning, by Segro.