Segro, the FTSE 100 warehouse and logistics property group, has rejected a £12.6 billion all-share takeover proposal from US rival Prologis, dismissing the approach as opportunistic after the San Francisco-based suitor took its bid public to pressure Segro shareholders into backing a deal. Announced on 23 June 2026 through a statement to the London Stock Exchange, the rejection sent Segro shares up around 18% to roughly 872p, the largest riser on the FTSE 100, as the market priced in the prospect of a contested bid.
The terms set out by Prologis place a clear premium on Segro’s shares. The world’s largest logistics real estate investment trust, with a market capitalisation of about $140.9 billion, wrote to Segro’s board on 16 June proposing 0.084 new Prologis shares for each Segro share, valuing the company at 925 pence per share — a 24.6% premium to Segro’s previous close of 742p, and a figure matching Segro’s last reported net tangible assets per share at the end of 2025. Under the proposal, Segro shareholders would own around 10.5% of the enlarged group, giving them exposure to a far larger global platform. Prologis argued that Segro’s growth had been constrained by its balance sheet and that its shares had traded at a persistent discount to the underlying value of its assets, pointing to its own stronger shareholder returns and a lower net-debt-to-enterprise-value ratio of 22% against Segro’s 37%.
Segro’s board rejected the proposal unanimously and unequivocally, and its objection went to both value and timing. The company said the bid was opportunistic and timed to exploit a clear dislocation between its share price and the underlying value of its assets — a gap it attributed to geopolitical pressures weighing on UK and European real estate valuations relative to the US REIT sector. Segro pointed to its strategy, a strong balance sheet and a proven operating platform, and emphasised the momentum building in its occupational markets and the scale of its development pipeline, including what it described as an exceptional data centre platform. The board said it remained confident in the company’s ability to capture substantial value for shareholders in the coming years.
The numbers behind Segro underline why it has drawn a bidder. Its portfolio spans roughly 117 million square feet of industrial, logistics and data centre space, valued at around £22 billion, and the company delivered an 8.3% rise in profit to £509 million in the last calendar year under chief executive David Sleath. The data centre pipeline is central to the contest: Prologis cited significant embedded value in Segro’s development and data centre assets that it argued Segro could not unlock alone, while Segro presents that same pipeline as evidence of the standalone value its board is defending.
The bid is the latest in a wave of overseas approaches for undervalued London-listed companies. It follows easyJet’s rejection on Monday of a £4.74 billion approach from US investment firm Castlelake, also branded opportunistic, and last week’s £9.5 billion agreed takeover of testing group Intertek by Sweden’s EQT, while earlier in the year Tate & Lyle, insurer Beazley and wealth manager Schroders were all targeted or taken over. The pattern points to persistent foreign interest in UK assets trading at a discount to US and European peers, and to a London market increasingly exposed to losing its larger constituents to better-capitalised overseas bidders.
Under UK takeover rules, Prologis now has until 5pm on 22 July to announce a firm intention to make an offer or walk away for at least six months. How Segro’s shareholders weigh a near-25% premium against the board’s confidence in its standalone prospects will determine whether Prologis returns with an improved or binding offer, or retreats. The board’s defence rests on the conviction that its data centre and development pipeline will deliver more value over time than the all-share terms on the table, and whether that argument holds against a concrete premium is the question now facing Segro’s investors.