Another FTSE firm is under attack from a US raider. Demand top dollar | Nils Pratley
Guardian AU Business
•Wed, 24 Jun 2026 17:09:23 GMT
📰 What Happened
Segro, the UK's largest commercial property landlord listed on the London Stock Exchange, rejected a £12.6 billion takeover bid from US rival Prologis. The approach valued Segro at 925p per share, a price its board dismissed as "a long way short of Segro's own views on value." The bid comes amidst a wave of US corporate interest in undervalued UK assets, following similar takeover attempts targeting easyJet and other FTSE-listed companies.
In his commentary for The Guardian, financial columnist Nils Pratley argues that Segro's board should hold out for a much higher price, emphasizing that the company's portfolio of warehouses and logistics centers has significant growth potential — particularly from the booming demand for data centers, AI infrastructure, and e-commerce logistics facilities. Pratley notes that 925p per share is merely equal to the net asset value of the properties, offering no premium for Segro's development pipeline, management expertise, or the strategic value of its land bank for data center construction. The bid is framed as another example of American companies exploiting what many see as the systematic undervaluation of UK companies on the London Stock Exchange.
🔍 The Backstory
Segro, originally founded as Slough Estates in 1920, has transformed over a century from a single-site property company managing the Slough Trading Estate into Europe's leading owner-manager of modern warehouses and industrial properties. The company's portfolio spans the UK and continental Europe, with a particular focus on logistics and distribution centers serving the e-commerce industry. In recent years, Segro has also become a major player in the data center space, repurposing industrial land for AI and cloud computing infrastructure — one of the fastest-growing segments in commercial real estate. The bid from Prologis, a US-based real estate investment trust (REIT) that is the world's largest owner of industrial real estate, is part of a broader pattern of US companies acquiring UK-listed firms at prices that many UK investors consider too low. The easyJet bid mentioned by Pratley is another prominent example of this trend, where US suitors have targeted UK companies they believe are trading below their intrinsic value.
🎯 Why It Matters
The Segro bid highlights a growing concern in UK financial circles about the vulnerability of British companies to foreign takeovers at bargain prices, driven by the persistent valuation gap between UK-listed stocks and their US counterparts. If successful, the acquisition would remove one of the UK's premier real estate companies from the London market, reducing the FTSE's sector diversity. The bid also underscores the immense strategic value of logistics and data center real estate in the AI era, suggesting that UK commercial property may be significantly undervalued by the market relative to its future potential in powering the digital economy.
Segro, the UK's largest commercial property landlord listed on the London Stock Exchange, rejected a £12.6 billion takeover bid from US rival Prologis. The approach valued Segro at 925p per share, a price its board dismissed as "a long way short of Segro's own views on value." The bid comes amidst a wave of US corporate interest in undervalued UK assets, following similar takeover attempts targeting easyJet and other FTSE-listed companies.
In his commentary for The Guardian, financial columnist Nils Pratley argues that Segro's board should hold out for a much higher price, emphasizing that the company's portfolio of warehouses and logistics centers has significant growth potential — particularly from the booming demand for data centers, AI infrastructure, and e-commerce logistics facilities. Pratley notes that 925p per share is merely equal to the net asset value of the properties, offering no premium for Segro's development pipeline, management expertise, or the strategic value of its land bank for data center construction. The bid is framed as another example of American companies exploiting what many see as the systematic undervaluation of UK companies on the London Stock Exchange.
Segro, originally founded as Slough Estates in 1920, has transformed over a century from a single-site property company managing the Slough Trading Estate into Europe's leading owner-manager of modern warehouses and industrial properties. The company's portfolio spans the UK and continental Europe, with a particular focus on logistics and distribution centers serving the e-commerce industry. In recent years, Segro has also become a major player in the data center space, repurposing industrial land for AI and cloud computing infrastructure — one of the fastest-growing segments in commercial real estate. The bid from Prologis, a US-based real estate investment trust (REIT) that is the world's largest owner of industrial real estate, is part of a broader pattern of US companies acquiring UK-listed firms at prices that many UK investors consider too low. The easyJet bid mentioned by Pratley is another prominent example of this trend, where US suitors have targeted UK companies they believe are trading below their intrinsic value.
The Segro bid highlights a growing concern in UK financial circles about the vulnerability of British companies to foreign takeovers at bargain prices, driven by the persistent valuation gap between UK-listed stocks and their US counterparts. If successful, the acquisition would remove one of the UK's premier real estate companies from the London market, reducing the FTSE's sector diversity. The bid also underscores the immense strategic value of logistics and data center real estate in the AI era, suggesting that UK commercial property may be significantly undervalued by the market relative to its future potential in powering the digital economy.