Jeffrey Schwartz, chief executive of warehouse developer ProLogis, told Bloomberg that the company intends to double its investment in Asia and Japan to as much as $12 billion.
ProLogis will double its Japan portfolio to 1.12 trillion yen ($9.5 billion), in the next three years and plans to double its investment in the rest of Asia to $2.5 billion this year, Schwartz said. He added that the firm intends to increase its staff in Asia by 20 to 25 percent in the next 12 months.
Earlier this month, the Denver-based company bought 17 properties from Matsushita Electric Industrial for 85 billion yen, expanding its holdings in Japan by 25 percent
Schwartz also said that ProLogis may set up a third fund with GIC Real Estate, the property unit of the Singapore governments investment arm, to invest in Japan. He said the fund would be bigger than the second fund, which was launched in 2005 with more than $600 million in capital. The first ProLogis/GIC vehicle closed in June 2002.
ProLogis currently has 21.7 million square feet of industrial space in Japan, concentrated in the markets of Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Fukuoka, Hiroshima and Sendai. An additional 4.9 million square feet of space is under development.
The distribution and logistics space in Japan has been attracting increased interest. Earlier this year Nomura Real Estate Holdings announced it will invest 200 billion yen into large distribution facilities in Japan over the next few years. Also this year, it was reported that LaSalle Investment Management has been raising a $750 million fund for logistics buildings in Japan.
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