Interview with Prologis

Project developer and investor Prologis is a market leader in the development, leasing and sale of logistics properties and is considered the world's largest asset manager. Since 1983, Prologis has successfully served the needs of a wide variety of sectors and industries. As a driver of innovation in the logistics real estate industry, Prologis holds, among others, the first WELL certified logistics complex in Europe in its portfolio.

Philipp Feige is Vice President, Head of Capital Deployment at Prologis in Düsseldorf and has been with the company for 11 years in various positions. In this role, he leads the German Market Officer team, but is also actively involved in the acquisition and execution of projects himself. In the interview he says: "A contactless in-ground charging infrastructure is an exciting energy supply concept - especially in the dynamic logistics environment, where unobtrusive ground integration happens right in the workspace of robots and humans."

What is the current situation regarding the availability of space for logistics and production companies and to what extent are there effects due to the Corona pandemic and the Ukraine war

Despite high demand, the situation for logistics and production real estate has been extremely tense for several years, as the supply of available space has fallen sharply. This is due, on the one hand, to the lack of will on the part of municipalities to approve new building sites for logistics complexes and, on the other hand, to effects having a global impact. Fueled by the Corona pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the accompanying inflation, the situation on the building materials markets is so tense that speculative new construction projects have almost come to a standstill. The result is that all demand-generating use classes are fighting equally for the remaining space.
In addition, the e-commerce sector, as a beneficiary of the Corona pandemic, experienced a strong upswing in the last 24 months, which additionally exacerbated the situation, even if this trend had recently cooled down. For our portfolio, this has led to an overall occupancy rate of 99.8% in 2022.

What are the implications for companies in this real estate segment ?

Companies must now rethink. The crises of recent years have shown that global supply chains are nowhere near as stable as assumed - on shoring strategies are now leading competitive factors. The run on space has long since begun.
A common measure that is now being taken is a massive increase in the company's own warehousing in order to be less sensitive to fluctuations in the supply chain.
The struggle for the storage space required for this also drives up rental costs even further.
Not every company can keep up with this and must develop progressive solutions to optimize inventory space - project developers are also challenged here.

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