Blackstone, the world's largest commercial property owner, has launched a bidding war against warehouse giant Prologis and other interested parties for a Mexican industrial property portfolio.
The winner would grab a dominant share of industrial real estate in northern Mexico.
Over the course of this year, Terrafina, owner of 300 properties totaling 42.3 million square feet in Mexico, has now drawn tender offers from three Mexican trusts for its outstanding shares.
The latest bid comes from Blackstone Real Estate and MRP Group, a Mexico City-based owner and operator of a wide range of commercial real estate in Mexico. The two firms announced that a Mexican trust formed by their affiliates has commenced a tender offer for up to 100% of the outstanding real estate trust certificates of Terrafina at a purchase price equal to $1.6 billion based on Terrafina's outstanding shares as of June 7.
The all-cash tender offer represents a premium of 21% over the price per Terrafina certificate at the close of trading on Dec. 4 and a 5% premium to Terrafina’s closing share price on June 7.
The offer appears to best the value of an offer by FIBRA Prologis. FIBRA is the designation for a real estate investment trust in Mexico.
Terrafina, externally advised by PGIM Real Estate, announced on May 31 that FIBRA Prologis’ tender offer, launched on May 17, was “fair from a financial point of view” for the holders of its trust certificates. FIBRA Prologis’ offer is for an exchange of a Terrafina trust share for a 0.58 trust share of FIBRA Prologis.
U.S.-based Prologis launched FIBRA Prologis in 2014. It was the first initial public offering of a real estate investment trust in Latin America, according to the firm.
FIBRA Prologis owns 236 logistics and manufacturing facilities in six industrial markets in Mexico totaling 46.9 million square feet.
Following Terrafina’s announcement opinion of fairness, another trust, FIBRA MTY, made an offer to merge Terrafina into FIBRA MTY. Terrafina is reviewing the offer.
FIBRA MTY owns 106 industrial properties in Mexico.
Representatives of the firms involved did not immediately respond to CoStar News' requests for additional information.