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Shares in UK real estate stocks are rallying broadly, following the takeover approach for Segro.
Land owner and developer Harworth are up 5.6%, while self-storage group Big Yellow has gained 4%.
Segro may be the biggest fish in the UK REIT pond, but at a market cap below £10bn is a minnow compared to Prologis.
It remains to be seen whether the combination will go ahead - in our view Prologis would be reluctant to increase the offer materially and take it above NAV - but the very fact that it was deemed possible given the company’s pan-European footprint and 460 employees that make it a more complex transaction than its smaller peers means that the entire sector could be back in the shop window for even larger, foreign companies.
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