SEGRO share price rose nearly 18 per cent to 872.40 after the board rejected Prologis’s £12.6bn takeover proposal on June 23. The move left shareholders with a higher mark on the stock but also a tighter clock on the deal itself.
925p Bid Meets 742p Close
Prologis valued Segro stock at 925p, a near 25 per cent premium to Tuesday’s 742p close, and said it had gone public in a bid to persuade shareholders to back the offer. The proposed combination would have left Segro investors with around 10.5 per cent of the new global group, a small slice for a business with £22bn of assets under management.
£12.6bn is the price tag Prologis put on a business whose land bank has a significant amount slated for data centres. Segro’s chief executive, David Sleath, told City AM in February that the rollout of data centres in the UK’s urban hubs was “critical” for developments on saving lives through AI-guided surgery.
UK Deadline on July 22
5pm on July 22 is the hard stop under UK takeover rules: Prologis must either make a formal bid or walk away for at least six months. That deadline now sits alongside a sharper question for Segro holders — whether the higher share price reflects a lasting rerating or just the market testing the bid against the board’s refusal.
Prologis says the takeover would unlock embedded opportunities for investment, while Segro’s board has unequivocally rejected that proposal. Prologis also argues Segro would be unable to unlock those opportunities standalone because of structural constraints, including its balance sheet capacity and trading discount, a clash that now leaves the bidder to prove its case before the clock runs out.
£509m Profit and £43bn Scale
£509m was Segro’s profit in the last calendar year, an 8.3 per cent rise that shows why the company can command a price well beyond the day-to-day move in the stock. Against that backdrop, the rejected approach is not just a headline premium; it is a test of whether a UK property group with £22bn of assets can stay independent while a US rival keeps pressing for a deal. If Prologis wants the board to move, the formal bid window is now the only route left.
