Segro rejects £12.6bn takeover approach from US rival Prologis, calls it 'opportunistically timed'

Author: Pui-Guan Man Source: Wed, June 24, 2026 at 4:35 AM PDT | 3 min read

British warehouse business Segro has rejected a £12.6bn takeover approach from US rival Prologis, as landlords invest billions to meet surging demand for AI data centres.

The bid for the FTSE-100-listed company — which owns Europe's largest hub of data centres in Slough, Berkshire — would have been the City's biggest ever property takeover.

San Francisco-based Prologis, the world's largest warehousing landlord valued at $135bn (£102bn), said its financial strength would enable it to fund Segro's data centre construction plans.

Segro has been expanding its portfolio of data centre buildings as Silicon Valley giants acquire commercial properties and equip them with AI processor chips. The company recently secured planning permission for a new £1bn site in west London.

Prologis, which has also been spending billions to grow its data centre footprint, said its offer would give Segro's shareholders a stake in the world's largest logistics real estate investment trust. It urged the UK company's investors "to encourage [its] board to engage."

Segro, which leases logistics warehouses to customers including Amazon, DHL, and Royal Mail, said its board had "unanimously and unequivocally" rejected the proposal.

In a statement, the board said:

"The proposal was opportunistically timed and sought to take advantage of the clear dislocation between Segro's current share price and its highly attractive underlying business and strong prospects.

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"This has been accentuated by major geopolitical issues which have adversely impacted trading valuations across the UK and European real estate sectors."

Commercial property landlords have been seeking to capitalise on soaring demand for AI infrastructure. Segro, already a major owner of data centres in Britain, has been aiming to expand in France, Germany, Italy, and Poland.

David Sleath, Segro's long-serving chief executive, told Reuters in April that the business was targeting planning permissions on several sites due to "very strong demand in the coming years."

Shares in the Slough-headquartered landlord rose 18% on Wednesday morning. The stock was trading at around 869p, below Prologis's offer of 925p per share.

Prologis Data Centre Push

Earlier this month, Dan Letter, chief executive of Prologis, told CNBC that data centres represented "one of the largest value creation opportunities" in the company's history.

Prologis has already secured 5.6 gigawatts (GW) of power capacity across its data centre developments and started construction on $1.3bn of projects.

Last year, Letter said the company aimed to expand its data centre portfolio to 10GW over a decade.

Background

Segro was established as the Slough Trading Company in 1920, when its founders — Lord Percival Perry, Redmond McGrath, and Noel Mobbs — purchased a First World War military repair depot and converted some of its old workshops into rental spaces for customers.

Run by David Sleath as its long-serving chief executive, Segro is now valued at £11.7bn on the stock exchange. Its property portfolio is valued at £19bn.

Broader Trend

The bid for Segro marks the second time this week a major FTSE business has resisted a multi-billion-pound takeover offer from a US company, as more firms face pressure to leave the London Stock Exchange.

On Monday, FTSE 250 airline easyJet rejected a hostile bid from US investment firm Castlelake, stating that the offer "fundamentally undervalues" the group.

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