Another real estate investment trust could be about to disappear from the market.
Brookfield Asset Management, a Canadian investment firm chaired by former Bank of England governor Mark Carney has said it’s in the early stages of making an offer for FTSE 250 member Tritax Eurobox.
However, Eurobox, which has a portfolio of logistics assets across Europe said it had not received an official proposal from Brookfield.
Carney has chaired the Toronto-based investment giant, which manages nearly $1 trillion (£780m) in assets for clients, since 2022.
The £484m trust currently trades at a steep 33 per cent discount to its underlying assets. It has not been valued at a premium by the market since the start of 2022.
Investing across Europe, Tritax Eurobox manages properties in Spain, Belgium and Germany.
The real estate investment trust space has seen numerous takeovers in recent months. Tritax, the manager of Tritax Eurobox, used its own UK-focused trust to take over UK Commercial Property REIT earlier this year.
Keith Dowley, co-founder of property adviser DTRE, told City A.M. following the UK Commercial Property takeover that aggregation was taking place at an “unprecedented scale”, moving us into “the age of the big box behemoth.”
As real estate investment trusts have moved away from offices after the pandemic, big box and logistics properties have become increasingly popular.
According to the rules of the UK Takeover Code, Brookfield must either announce its firm intention to make an offer by 1 July or state that it does not intend to make an offer.