Brookfield outbids Segro in battle for Tritax Eurobox

Brookfield, one of the world’s largest private investment firms, has entered the bidding battle for Tritax Eurobox with an agreed £557 million cash offer.
The big box warehouse owner has recommended that shareholders accept Brookfield’s offer, which at 69p a share is at a 6 per cent premium to an earlier agreed all-share offer from the FTSE 100 rival Segro.
Segro’s offer was valued at £552 million when it was recommended in September but its shares have since fallen, reducing the value of the offer to 64p a share.
Tritax said Brookfield’s offer represented an “attractive premium” for shareholders over Segro’s offer and it has switched its recommendation to Brookfield.
Brookfield said in June that it was in the “early stages of assessing a possible cash offer” for Tritax. After Segro made its offer, Tritax shares rose above its offer price in expectation that Brookfield would counterbid.
Tritax EuroBox listed in London in 2018 and is now in the FTSE 250 with a market capitalisation of about £434 million.
The property investment trust owns £1.2 billion of warehouses across Europe, mostly in the Netherlands and Germany. Brookfield believes that the company’s warehouses fit well with its “diverse global logistics portfolio”, which covers more than 85 million square feet.
Brad Hyler, head of real estate in Europe at Brookfield, said: “Tritax EuroBox has a high-quality portfolio of logistics assets in strategic locations across Europe. These assets are complementary to our existing portfolio and, using our global real estate expertise, we will actively manage these assets, provide access to capital, help build new relationships with our network of tenants and support the overall growth of the platform.”
Tritax Eurobox shares rose 2½p, or 3.5 per cent, to 71½p this morning as markets expected a response from Segro and the possibility of a bidding war. Segro’s shares rose 13p, or 1.5 per cent, to 849 ½p.
David Sleath, Segro’s chief executive, said in September that a deal with Tritax Eurobox offered the “opportunity to acquire a high-quality portfolio of big box warehouses in core European markets, which would complement and enhance our existing assets”.