Prologis Q2 2026 Earnings Call - Data Center Pipeline Expands to 5.8 GW While Logistics Cycle Confirms Growth
Summary
Prologis is no longer forecasting a recovery. It is running it. Second quarter results delivered a textbook confirmation of the inflection point management has signaled for over a year. U.S. net absorption hit 66 million square feet, the strongest pace since 2022, while rollover rents jumped more than 36 percent on a net effective basis. Occupancy climbed to 95.5 percent, and the company raised full year core FFO guidance to $6.22 to $6.30 per share. The market is not just stabilizing. It is reaccelerating.
The real narrative lives beyond the warehouse doors. Prologis has successfully weaponized its land bank and customer relationships to build a 5.8 gigawatt data center pipeline, representing up to $87 billion in potential turnkey investment. With less than one percent of its global portfolio currently deployed in digital infrastructure, the company is positioning itself as an integrated logistics, energy, and data play. Supply constraints are already biting, with zero availability for spaces over one million square feet, while management continues to acquire assets at a 20 percent discount to replacement cost. The cycle has turned. Prologis is simply preparing to scale.
Key Takeaways
- Management raised full year guidance across the board, pushing core FFO expectations to $6.22 to $6.30 per share and net earnings to $4.40 to $4.55, reflecting sustained operational outperformance.
- U.S. net absorption reached 66 million square feet in the second quarter, the highest level since 2022, while vacancy declined to 7.2 percent and market rents increased approximately 70 basis points.
- The data center pivot has moved from concept to capital deployment. The power pipeline expanded to 5.8 gigawatts, representing up to $87 billion in turnkey potential, with 85 percent positioned for development starts through 2030.
- Supply constraints are tightening across all size categories. Availability for buildings over 500,000 square feet is minimal, and there is zero inventory for spaces exceeding one million square feet.
- Strategic capital deployment remains highly disciplined. Management acquired $1.8 billion in real estate at an estimated 20 percent discount to replacement cost, with acquisition IRRs outpacing dispositions by 140 basis points year to date.
- Embedded NOI opportunity remains robust at nearly $800 million, anchored by a 17 percent lease mark to market that management expects to normalize in the low double digits as market rents catch up to replacement costs.
- Geographic recovery is broadening. Europe sits roughly 12 months ahead of the U.S. with tight vacancy at 5.2 percent and rising rents, while Southern California has bottomed and is entering early recovery phases.
- The balance sheet is being leveraged for strategic flexibility. Debt to EBITDA stands at 4.7 times, providing ample borrowing capacity to fund $5.5 to $6.5 billion in development starts and data center campus builds.
- Energy and sustainability are becoming integrated lease drivers. With only 8 percent of roofs currently covered in solar, the 1.3 gigawatts of existing rooftop power positions Prologis Essentials as a tangible asset in tenant negotiations.
- Management signaled a structural shift in demand composition. E commerce, advanced manufacturing, and data center construction support are now the primary growth engines, with each $1 trillion in data center CapEx expected to generate 30 to 40 million square feet of incremental logistics demand.
- The Segro acquisition remains on the table but is being handled with strict regulatory and valuation discipline. Management reiterated that any deal requires a strategic fit, a meaningful premium, and pricing that exceeds stated net tangible assets.
Full Transcript
Operator: As a reminder, this conference also is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce Justin Meng, Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.
Justin Meng, Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations, Prologis: Thank you, operator, good morning, everyone. Welcome to our second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Joining us today are Dan Letter, CEO, Tim Arndt, CFO, and Chris Caton, Managing Director. I’d like to note that this call will contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Federal Securities laws, including statements regarding our outlook, expectations, and future performance. These statements are based on current assumptions and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Please refer to our SEC filings and second quarter earnings press release for a discussion of these risks. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. Additionally, during this call, we will discuss certain financial measures, such as FFO and EBITDA, that are non-GAAP.
In accordance with Reg G, we have provided a reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP measures in our second quarter earnings press release and supplemental. Both are available on our website at www.prologis.com. I’d also note that in connection with the company’s possible offer for Segro under the U.K. Takeover Code, for regulatory reasons, we will not take or respond to any questions directly or indirectly related to Segro or the possible offer. With that, I will hand the call over to Dan.
Dan Letter, CEO, Prologis: Thank you, Justin, good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. As we look across the business, it’s clear we’re entering the next phase of growth where logistics, data centers, and energy increasingly reinforce one another. We delivered another exceptional quarter driven by strengthening demand, disciplined execution, and the expanding capabilities of our platform. As a result, we’re raising our outlook for the year. We signed a record 67 million sq ft of leases during the quarter, and after several quarters of sustained demand, we believe the market is entering its next phase. We’re putting that demand to work through disciplined investment. Our 14,000 acre land bank represents 240 million sq ft of embedded development opportunity. That gives us the flexibility to meet customer demand while creating value through development. During the quarter, we started $1.6 billion of new projects.
Our logistics platform is creating opportunities well beyond warehouse development. The same land, customer relationships, and operating capabilities that have made us the leader in logistics are enabling our data center and energy businesses, creating two additional long-term growth opportunities for Prologis. Our power pipeline has expanded to approximately 5.8 gigawatts, representing about $17 billion of powered shell investment potential or up to $87 billion on a turnkey basis. While this opportunity has been years in the making, we believe we’re still in the early innings. Importantly, the projects in our current power pipeline represent less than 1% of our global portfolio, underscoring the runway ahead. We’re also seeing customers increasingly look to Prologis for more than real estate. They’re looking for integrated solutions across logistics, energy, and warehouse operations. Our scale and long-standing customer relationships give us a unique view into how their businesses are evolving.
That insight helps us anticipate demand, shape our development pipeline, and stay ahead of the market. Finally, we continue to execute on our strategic capital strategy. During the quarter, we closed our $1.2 billion European joint venture with La Caisse, further expanding that long-standing relationship and reflecting strong demand for high quality logistics assets. Prologis remains the partner of choice for investors seeking scale, execution, and access to the highest quality logistics portfolio in the world. Taken together, these results reinforce the strength of our platform and the opportunities in front of us. We’re confident in where the business is headed and remain focused on creating long-term value for our shareholders. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Tim.
Tim Arndt, CFO, Prologis: Thank you, Dan. We delivered an excellent quarter with Core FFO of $1.63 per share, including net promote income, and $1.60 per share without, each ahead of our expectations. We generated $83 million of promote revenue in the quarter, driven by outperformance from three vehicles, underscoring the performance driven nature within our strategic capital business. We ended the quarter with 95.5% occupancy, a 20 basis point improvement over the first quarter. Rent change on rollover exceeded 36% on a net effective basis, realizing $60 million of incremental NOI, and rent change on a cash basis was 22%. Notably, our portfolio lease mark-to-market remained unchanged from the prior quarter at 17% on a net effective basis, fully replenishing our embedded NOI opportunity of nearly $800 million available without any further market rent growth.
In the end, we delivered Same-Store NOI growth for the quarter of 6.4% on a net effective basis and 8.5% on cash. Overall, these results continue to demonstrate the strength of a global platform and a portfolio highly curated to outperform. Turning to capital deployment, as Dan mentioned, we started over $1.6 billion in new development during the quarter, including approximately $800 million in logistics properties. As market conditions continue to strengthen, our starts in logistics have spanned our global footprint, representing markets such as San Francisco, Vancouver, the U.K., Milan, Berlin, and Chennai. All where demand and rents for modern, well-located warehouse facilities support new development. We acquired $1.8 billion of real estate during the quarter at an estimated discount to replacement cost of approximately 20%, executing on our strategy to go deeper within our existing markets.
This allows us to leverage our teams, infrastructure, data, and customer relationships to drive scale and operational outperformance. Our disposition activity totaled $800 million during the quarter. Stepping back, the underwritten IRRs on our acquisitions have exceeded the IRRs on our dispositions by 140 basis points year to date, achieving both ongoing portfolio optimization while enhancing long-term returns. Finally, contributions totaled $500 million for the quarter, demonstrating continued execution of our business model, which crystallizes value creation, recycles capital, and grows AUM and revenues within our strategic capital business. As an update on data centers, we had an exceptional quarter with advancement of our priorities in every facet of this growing business. We started a 260-megawatt build-to-suit campus with total expected investment of approximately $800 million. Our year-to-date data center starts now total $2.1 billion, exceeding our full year guidance.
We’ve now commenced nearly $4 billion of data center development, all build-to-suit for the highest quality digital infrastructure customers, with more than 50% of this capital invested in turnkey projects. During the quarter, we also completed a 100-megawatt power land sale, generating an 82% margin and illustrating our disciplined approach to maximizing risk-adjusted returns by monetizing projects at the stage where we see the greatest profit margin. Lastly, we expanded our power pipeline to approximately 5.8 gigawatts, which has now more than doubled over the past two years. Approximately 85% of this pipeline is positioned to support development starts through 2030. The breadth of this activity demonstrates that our data center business is driven by an integrated platform that consistently originates, develops, and realizes value. We see over 10 gigawatts of development opportunity over the next 10 years.
Turning to our market conditions, as we’ve been discussing for over a year, the market has been working through the stages of inflection, and we see overall conditions now geared for growth. U.S. net absorption totaled 66 million sq ft in the second quarter, a strong result and the highest level since 2022. This contributed to vacancy declining to 7.2%, while market rents increased approximately 70 basis points. Customer demand is broadening with notable and growing strength across e-commerce, advanced manufacturing, and increasingly customer supporting the build-out of digital infrastructure. Our research estimates that each $1 trillion of data center CapEx will generate 30 to 40 million sq ft of incremental logistics demand, creating a durable multiyear source of growth. Alongside these secular additions, demand from our largest segment, basic daily needs and the logistics that support them, remains healthy.
Taken together, these trends reinforce our view that the market has transitioned into its next phase of growth, with additional upside potential when cyclical sectors such as housing, autos, and furnishings recover toward their historical levels. Europe has been ahead of the U.S., with its market recovery now nearly 12 months in the making. Demand remains robust, and vacancy has been stable and relatively tight at 5.2%. This has been translating to rent growth, which increased approximately 60 basis points during the quarter and 160 basis points from the trough last year. Finally, we are seeing the strength across all size categories. Large format space remains in tight supply, creating upward pressure on rents and adding depth to our build-to-suit pipeline. We have very limited availability in spaces larger than 500,000 sq ft and no availability whatsoever in spaces larger than 1 million sq ft.
At the same time, occupancy is improving across smaller units in nearly all of our markets. Moving to the capital markets, sentiment towards logistics real estate continues to lead other property types, supported by improving operating fundamentals. Transaction volumes are increasing year-over-year with broader buyer participation across our target markets, though capital remains selective with a clear preference for high-quality, well-located assets. Appraised values across our strategic capital platform increased approximately 1% quarter-over-quarter. Market cap rates remain around 5%, with in-place cap rates in the mid-fours and unlevered IRRs stable in the mid sevens. Turning to the balance sheet, during the quarter, we completed approximately $3.4 billion of financing activity, accessing capital across the U.S., Europe, and Asia in multiple currencies. Our debt-to-EBITDA ratio ended the quarter at 4.7 times, building tremendous borrowing capacity, especially when considering the scale of our balance sheet.
Now turning to guidance, which I’ll review at our share. We are raising our outlook to reflect the strength of our operating performance and continued visibility into earnings growth. We are increasing our forecast for average occupancy to a range of 95.25%-95.75%. This increase, together with our second quarter outperformance, drives our expectation for net effect of same-store growth of 5.25%-5.75% and cash same-store growth of 6.75%-7.25%. Strategic capital revenue, excluding promotes, remains unchanged at $660 million-$680 million, while net promote income is now expected to be flat on the year. G&A is expected to remain in the range of $510 million-$525 million. We are increasing development starts, and this on an owned and managed basis, to a range of $5.5 billion-$6.5 billion, reflecting strong demand and expanding opportunities.
This incorporates the $2.1 billion of data center starts in the first half. We are also increasing acquisitions to $1.5 billion-$2 billion and expect contributions and dispositions to range from $4.25 billion-$5.25 billion, consistent with our strategy of recycling capital and optimizing portfolio returns. Putting it all together, we are raising our net earnings guidance to $4.40-$4.55 per share. Core FFO is now expected to range between $6.22 and $6.30 per share, including and excluding promotes, representing a 100 basis point increase at the midpoint of our prior guidance. In closing, we believe the business is exceptionally well-positioned. We are executing across every part of our platform, from operations and development to strategic capital data centers and energy, at a time that market conditions continue to improve.
Occupier and investor demand is broadening, rent growth is re-accelerating, and our customers continue to turn to us for increasingly integrated solutions. Combined with the strength of our balance sheet and the scale of our platform, we believe these trends position Prologis to continue creating value today while extending our long-term growth opportunity. With that, I will turn the call back over to Dan.
Dan Letter, CEO, Prologis: Thanks, Tim. As Justin said, we’re not going to take questions on Segro for regulatory reasons. What I would say is this: we’ve been very consistent over time in how we think about M&A. The bar is high. It has to be the right asset, and it has to be the right strategic fit. We’ll always be disciplined on price. On Segro specifically, we put forward a very compelling proposal. It offers a meaningful premium to where the stock has traded and values the business above its stated NTA. As importantly, it gives Segro shareholders the opportunity to participate in the upside of a stronger combined company. The value of the Prologis enterprise and everything it offers should not be overlooked. Beyond that, there’s not much more we can say today. We’ll stay disciplined, and if and when there’s something to share, we’ll share it.
Operator, we’re ready for questions.
Operator: Thank you. At this time, we will conduct our question and answer session. If you’d like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Our first question comes from Thomas Catherwood with BTIG. State your question, please.
Thomas Catherwood, Analyst, BTIG: Thanks, and good morning, everybody. Maybe, Tim, the blue sky scenario for logistics real estate that you’d always talked about really seems to be playing out. This quarter specifically, record leasing again and customer retention started coming down, which is usually a sign of pushing rents. Our question is, how much market rent growth is needed for your embedded mark to market to start expanding again? I know it’s stabilized this quarter. Is your portfolio ahead of the curve in any way, such that you’re able to capture higher rents before your competitors in a given market?
Tim Arndt, CFO, Prologis: Hey, Tom. First off, I appreciate you acknowledging the realization of the call that we’ve been, I think, in a sober way, just predicting over the last really six quarters now. It’s been a really steady level of improvement and execution, and we’re as pleased as anybody to see the market also coming along. In terms of seeing an expansion of the lease mark-to-market from here, one, I’ll just underline again, this was an interesting quarter to see it fully level out. That’s not necessarily something to expect. We know that that number will come down. We’ve talked about that many times in the past. It should normalize at some point in the future in a run rate in a low double-digit kind of range.
The specific answer to your question is, if we see market rents achieve a growth level that exceeds rent change in any given year by roll, right. That’s just going to be the math of when we would then turn to see it expand again. We would hold out the possibility that that could occur, especially when we look at not just the standing lease mark-to-market that we have, but when we evaluate replacement cost rents as well, which you know are very favorable.
Dan Letter, CEO, Prologis: I’ll just pile on, as you also asked around the Prologis portfolio. I think what you should look at is just the continued outperformance in occupancy, and you’re seeing us just take more and more market share every quarter. Thank you, Tom. Operator, next question.
Operator: Your next question comes from Michael Griffin with Evercore ISI. Please state your question.
Michael Griffin, Analyst, Evercore ISI: Great. Thanks very much. Maybe just going back to sort of leasing demand in the portfolio broadly. Can you give us a sense in your conversations with customers, is this more kind of pent-up demand, maybe customers have been dragging their feet over the past 2 quarters, realized that inventory is getting tighter, they needed to execute on some of these leases? Are you seeing maybe newer customers you weren’t expecting start to enter the market given what seems like maybe more certainty around their business needs or demand for logistics real estate?
Dan Letter, CEO, Prologis: Thanks, Michael. Let me get started, I’m going to hand it over to Chris. I think the headline here, again, is really 2 numbers. We signed 67 million square feet of leases in the second quarter here. That’s our fourth record in the past seven quarters. We also saw 66 million square feet of net absorption across the U.S. We’ve also seen our pipeline. We’ve talked a lot about our pipeline over the last 2 years. To have that level of leasing and the replenishment of the pipeline rolling where it is, it just shows where this trend is. You put that together, the tone of the customer conversations continues to improve. We started talking about them making decisions a few quarters ago. Companies are very focused on growth. They’re investing in their supply chains. They’re making these longer-term decisions.
You’ve heard us talk about our big box availability. We have only a few, just a small handful of buildings over 500,000 square feet in our 1.3 billion square foot portfolio that are available. We’re actually seeing that now migrate into the midsize and smaller spaces as well. All very positive. Chris, you have some more color there.
Chris Caton, Managing Director, Prologis: In terms of the rationale for growth, let’s look at some of the industries that are driving the growth. You have three or four points here. Number 1 is e-commerce, this is not just one company or one geography. It’s international in nature. It’s a range of size categories. E-commerce is for sure driving growth. Second is broadly advanced manufacturing, whether it’s data center construction support, whether it’s defense, whether it’s the semiconductor space. That’s a growth driver. Dan touched on supply chain reconfiguration. Companies are just getting more comfortable investing in their supply chains, competing and winning for revenues. There are categories that reflect growth opportunities in the future that are sort of underpunching their weight. Broadly, housing comes to mind. Whether it’s construction materials or the furniture or appliance space.
This is roughly a quarter of our customers that are just not on their front foot quite yet, but represent a growth opportunity.
Dan Letter, CEO, Prologis: Thank you, Michael. Operator, next question.
Operator: Your next question comes from Jonathan Petersen with Jefferies. Please state your question.
Jonathan Petersen, Analyst, Jefferies: Oh, great. Thanks. I just want to make sure I understand the development start guidance correctly. You increased it by about $1 billion. That matches the data center development start this year. I guess if we just think about the difference between what you started year to date and getting to guidance, is that mostly imply warehouses and anything you do on data centers is upside to that? I guess, how are you baking in data center starts into the guidance? Also, maybe just can you talk to us about a maximum number of starts you think you can do in a year given your strong balance sheet?
Chris Caton, Managing Director, Prologis: Hey, John. Well, I want to be sure I understand your question. Yeah, we took up the overall starts guidance meaningfully. Last quarter, if you unpack the components of our guidance, it had predicted $2 billion of data center starts, which we have now achieved. Yeah, the uplift, I think you’re trying to infer, is that coming from logistics? That would be correct.
Dan Letter, CEO, Prologis: When you see the improving market fundamentals across so many of our markets, we’re talking over two dozen markets that we could see spec this year where the rents have caught up. That’s really great momentum. Also the build-to-suit pipeline continues to increase. It’s up about 10, 12% quarter-over-quarter. A lot of momentum on the logistics side.
Chris Caton, Managing Director, Prologis: Thank you, John. Operator, next question.
Operator: Our next question comes from Vikram Malhotra with Mizuho. Please state your question.
Vikram Malhotra, Analyst, Mizuho: Afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. I just want to clarify, I guess two things. One, can you just specifically give us what was the market rent growth in the U.S. in the quarter and your expectation? Do you mind just updating us on your latest net absorption view, given the uptick you mentioned in 2Q? What are you anticipating for the year? Thanks.
Chris Caton, Managing Director, Prologis: Let’s start with the market fundamentals and then jump into the rent growth dynamic. I want to be clear, we’re upgrading our view on market fundamentals. Really, this is a natural progression of the view that we’ve held over the course of the last, like Tim Arndt described, 6 quarters. We’re moving through this inflection phase that we’ve been talking about, and a broader recovery is taking hold. Market rents and occupancies have stabilized and begun to grow again. The specific numbers you’re looking for, net absorption, we see that amounting to 220 million square feet in the U.S. this year, and it’s all the things Dan Letter described as it relates to the dialogue we’re having with customers, our pipeline, and the breadth across markets and sizes.
For completions, we anticipate 195 million square feet this year, and that should allow market occupancies to rise a total of, let’s say, 30 basis points this year. Putting it together, the markets are entering a new phase of growth, and it sets us up to see more consistent and sustained rent growth going forward as the occupational recovery emerges. In terms of rent growth in the quarter, the U.S. was 70 basis points. We’re anticipating that growth has the position to become more consistent going forward. As this operational recovery becomes more broad-based, we could see inflation plus style growth emerge over time, given where market rents are relative to replacement costs.
Dan Letter, CEO, Prologis: Thank you, Vikram Malhotra. Operator, next question.
Operator: Your next question comes from Michael Goldsmith with UBS. Please go ahead.
Michael Goldsmith, Analyst, UBS: Good afternoon. Thanks a lot for taking my question. Can you provide an update on the Southern California market? It looks like lease percentage picked up 110 basis points sequentially above the overall average of 30 basis points in the U.S. Can you just talk about the pace of recovery of that market relative to the rest of the portfolio? Thanks.
Chris Caton, Managing Director, Prologis: Michael, it’s Chris. Yeah. Good call out. Southern California also bottomed and is moving towards early recovery. We’ve talked about these three phases of an inflection phase. Let’s hit those real quick. Demand, that’s become more consistent and broad-based across customers, across sub-markets, across sizes. Net absorption in the quarter in Southern California amounted to nine million sq ft, led by the Inland Empire. We also saw a vacancy inflection across the marketplace. Vacancies were down 30 basis points quarter-on-quarter and are now below 7% in that geography. Market rents are stable with some notable increases in a few pockets occurring this year. Bottom line, Southern California is early in the recovery, but the cycle advances quarter, just as you’re asking. Now looking forward, barriers to supply, both at the municipal and at the state level, should help accelerate the recovery as conditions firm.
Dan Letter, CEO, Prologis: Let me just pile on there. Tim mentioned earlier about us delivering this forecast over the last several quarters as to what was going to happen in the market. We look at the overall broader market. We talked about this inflection period. We now see these numbers. We see that inflection in the rearview mirror. We’ve also been talking over the last several quarters about Southern California following that by two or three quarters. Well, here you have it. It’s playing out as we had suggested. Then I would just pile on when it comes to our outperformance, I think you need to take into consideration the quality of our portfolio, the location of our portfolio, and why you see that recovery show up in our numbers.
Chris Caton, Managing Director, Prologis: Thank you, Michael. Operator, next question.
Operator: Your next question comes from Caitlin Burrows with Goldman Sachs. Please state your question.
Caitlin Burrows, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Hi, everyone. Maybe a follow-up from earlier on the development side. It sounds like you’re expecting $2 billion of industrial starts in the second half. Can you talk about the appetite for build-to-suit versus spec at this point? Sounds like it’s both. To the extent there’s more spec included, what’s your take on the rest of the market? Is it just Prologis picking up spec developments, or is it the industry as a whole?
Dan Letter, CEO, Prologis: What I would say is, again, just reiterate, we’re seeing market improvement across many markets, so you’ll see more spec from us. The build-to-suit pipeline is growing. Build-to-suits are binary, right? They take several quarters often to come to fruition. We always have to look back and see where that percentage shakes out, and it’s usually somewhere between 40%-50% of the overall volume. I feel very good about that build-to-suit volume and just where our customers are and just the fact that there are so few large format buildings available. When you have 14,000 acres of land and 240 million square feet of opportunities, it really plays out well for us.
Chris Caton, Managing Director, Prologis: Thank you, Caitlin. Operator, next question.
Operator: Your next question comes from Vince Tibone with Green Street. Please state your question.
Vince Tibone, Analyst, Green Street: Hi, everyone. I wanted to follow up on the comment that you think 85% of the current 5.8 gigawatt data center power pipeline could be started through 2030, which I think is the first time you shared that timeline. I just want to get a sense of how we should think about kind of the mix of powered shell versus turnkey data centers going forward, just to help kind of narrow down a reasonable range of the potential capital investment here. Obviously it’s a huge swing factor, as you outlined, depending if it’s all one versus the other.
Dan Letter, CEO, Prologis: Yeah, it is a wide range for sure. The numbers that I quoted in the script from $17 billion-$87 billion worth of opportunity. The number will shake out somewhere in between those two numbers. That’s all I can tell you. We like to say we want to do turnkey for all of these because it’s a better situation for us in whatever vehicle or however we capitalize this business. The reality is this is a customer-led business, and we’re going to deliver what our customers want. We’ve delivered turnkey, and we’ve delivered powered shell. You saw us actually sell powered land this last quarter as well because the risk-adjusted return at that point was so attractive to us to not have to spend any more capital, yet to get an 82% margin on that was so significant.
Really hard to peg where it is, but you see where our mix has been so far, and much like build-to-suits, it’s hard to see where those shake out, but it’s going to be somewhere in the middle there.
Chris Caton, Managing Director, Prologis: Thank you, Vince. Operator, next question.
Operator: Your next question comes from John Kim with BMO Capital Markets. Please state your question.
Eric, Analyst, BMO Capital Markets: Hi, it’s Eric on for John. I was just hoping you could provide some more detail on the 160 basis point decline in development yield starts quarter-over-quarter. Is that primarily a function of deal mix, or are you seeing changes in pricing due to increased competition? Thank you.
Dan Letter, CEO, Prologis: That is entirely mixed. I think you just need to look at the overall development book over time to really track what that is. It’s really just a mix, and it can be lumpy quarter-by-quarter.
Tim Arndt, CFO, Prologis: I might pile on there and just highlight as well that the margin is what best contextualizes that mix then together with our expectations on stabilized cap rates. That looks very strong in the quarter, clearly.
Dan Letter, CEO, Prologis: Thank you, Eric. Operator, next question.
Operator: Your next question comes from Michael Carroll with RBC Capital Markets. Please state your question.
Michael Carroll, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Yeah, thanks. Tim, you indicated in your prepared remarks that PLD sees 10 gigawatts of data center and development opportunities over the next 10 years. How does this differ from how PLD was thinking about the space during the 2023 Investor Day? I know during the Investor Day, you also highlighted the same 10 gigawatt number over a longer period of time. Is the outlook similar, or should we read that PLD is just more confident on its ability to execute on that 10 gigawatts over the medium term?
Dan Letter, CEO, Prologis: Michael, this is Dan. Maybe Tim has something to pile on when I’m done. What I would say is, Tim also made a remark about the fact that our power pipeline has doubled in the last two years. What I’m very proud of is the fact that we told you all what we were going to do in 2023 with this data center business, and that was around building a pipeline, that was around building internal capabilities, that was around round-tripping properties. We’ve done all of that and continue to do so. We have dozens, if not hundreds, of applications out there, and across all of our geographies, our 6,000 buildings and literally hundreds and hundreds of land sites building a power bank. We put the 10 gigawatts out there as a projection that we’re very confident in that we’re going to deliver.
If, again, just look at the size of the sandbox that we get to play in here, you’re going to see a lot more megawatts or gigawatts behind that. It’s grown since 2023, and we’ll see how this team is able to continue to outperform.
Tim Arndt, CFO, Prologis: I might just add on to that. A very critical ingredient here is not just all the real estate, all the power, but it’s clearly the capital as well. I’ve certainly had to get my head around together with the rest of the company how to take on the entirety of this opportunity, and you’ve seen us kind of preparing ourselves for that. We’ve talked about opening up capital availability via our logistics development ventures, et cetera, and we’re really clearing the decks for having all of the capital availability here that’ll be necessary to take advantage of what has indeed been a growing opportunity.
Dan Letter, CEO, Prologis: Thank you, Mike. Operator, next question.
Operator: Your next question comes from Nicholas Yulico with Scotiabank. Please state your question.
Nicholas Yulico, Analyst, Scotiabank: Thank you. In terms of the data centers, as you’re ramping up development there, can you just give us your latest thoughts on the plan to either sell assets outright versus doing JVs or a fund? Then I’m also wondering how you’re comfortable underwriting residual cap rates and values for these assets to achieve the 20%-50% expected margin you’ve talked about. Thanks.
Tim Arndt, CFO, Prologis: Well, I’ll start there. Look, there’s no change on the decision that the view we have to sell these assets at completion. We’ve been doing that. We have some stabilized assets on the balance sheet that will await some related campus projects, and we’ll take another package out to sale probably in the next six to nine months. That remains the go-forward plan right now. With regard to a broader discussion around capitalization, you know we’ve been looking at that for a while. I would say we’ve essentially completed a review of what’s available in the market. We talked to a lot of large global LPs. What’s become clear is that our opportunity set is so vast, and the product type here is, of course, so unique that no single structure is likely to optimize that full potential.
We’ve also seen that with those investors we’ve been speaking with, their preferences vary as well. Some want powered shell, some want to just pursue turnkey opportunities, some want to hold long-term, some want more capital focused on development. Since our opportunities span all those preferences, what we’ve now seen we’ve done is we’ve formed relationships and frameworks within range of partners, and we’ll be looking to pursue opportunities with them potentially where that alignment is strong and it best fits the deal, and importantly, checks all the boxes for Prologis. In the meantime, as is, I think, very evident from the growth in the business and even the year-to-date starts you now see over $2 billion, we’re very capable of handling this on our balance sheet. That’s where the largest component of nominal value creation resides, and we feel very good about our capacity to do so.
Dan Letter, CEO, Prologis: You also had a question there around the margins and the durability of those margins, I believe. What I would say is, through this process of looking at how we’re going to capitalize the business and then also just executing and round-tripping these assets so far, we’re seeing that market mature for stabilized assets. We have a very good handle at any given time what these assets are worth, either on a powered shell basis or how far down the turnkey spectrum you take it to ensure that we can generate those acceptable margins and more than acceptable margins. Keep in mind a couple of facts here. All of these deals are build-to-suits, long-term leases with hyperscale customers. Great durable income streams. Lastly, our land basis is a logistics land basis.
These deals have a tremendous uplift in land basis to get to fair market value for powered land.
Tim Arndt, CFO, Prologis: Thank you, Nick. Operator, next question.
Operator: Your next question comes from David Rodgers with Raymond James. Please state your question.
David Rodgers, Analyst, Raymond James: Yeah, good morning out there. I wanted to tie two concepts together. Tim, thanks for your comments on the cap rates during your prepared remarks. You could also beat on the promote, I think your own expectations versus The Street. Can you talk a little bit about the change in cap rates, the change in asset pricing that you’re seeing kind of coming into this quarter? Then also kind of what drove that promote. Was it income? Was it the cap rates? Will we expect to continue to see more promotes as they came at somewhat of a surprise this quarter? Thanks.
Tim Arndt, CFO, Prologis: Yeah. I think the way you unpack the cap rates and returns and valuation uplift from my prepared remarks is that all of those yields and returns have been relatively stable, right? We’ve been talking about a low to mid five market cap rate for a while. We’ve been talking about a low to mid seven IRR for a while. Valuation uplifts manifest because portfolios are chewing through their lease mark-to-market, and the cash flow streams are increasing amidst constant return requirements. The values are rising. The promote was predominantly out of Mexico. That portfolio, our FIBRA vehicle there is excellent and has outperformed the market, meaningfully generating a promote. That’s been a pretty perennial occurrence, as you’ve seen lately. We feel very good about it and look forward to its future.
Dan Letter, CEO, Prologis: Thank you, Dave. Operator, next question.
Operator: Your next question comes from Todd Thomas with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please state your question.
Todd Thomas, Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets: Hi. Thanks. Maybe, I guess following up a little bit on that last question, but more geared towards acquisitions and maybe acquisition cap rates. You increased the guidance for acquisitions by $500 million. Can you comment a little bit on the competition you’re seeing, and whether competition’s really changed at all over the last few months? Can you comment on the 4.1% stabilized cap rate for investments in the quarter and just speak to pricing and cap rate trends there?
Tim Arndt, CFO, Prologis: Yeah. With regard to the acquisitions in the quarter, we feel great about what was bought there. Incidentally, we don’t focus a lot of detail, but you’ll see a good chunk of assets bought on the balance sheet. That cap rate is reflective of some deeply below market rent on leases that come attached to those assets, and they’re in premier coastal markets. I mentioned a deep discount to replacement cost, and these would be a large driver of that. You could even unpack the price per pound there if you like, and you’ll find that basis with the knowledge that those are in SoCal and Southern Florida. I’m telling you now that there’s a very attractive basis that we bought those assets at.
Dan Letter, CEO, Prologis: We’ve said this for years. We are an IRR focused, total return focused investor. You can get wrapped around the axle on a going in cap rate that may have a substantial lift right around the corner here. We’re always going to focus on that total return.
Tim Arndt, CFO, Prologis: Thank you, Todd. Operator, next question.
Operator: Your next question comes from Blaine Heck with Wells Fargo. Please state your question.
Jamie Feldman, Analyst, Wells Fargo: Hey, it’s Jamie Feldman sitting in for Blaine. You commented several times about entering the next phase of the cycle or moving into the next chapter. Every cycle is different. From what you’re seeing so far, and the platform you have today, if you look out the next couple of years, what do you think you’re going to throttle up the most across the Prologis platform to drive that growth or to see the opportunities? Then just anything else you can provide that just tell us what feels different this time in terms of the demand you’re seeing or the opportunities you’re seeing.
Dan Letter, CEO, Prologis: Thanks, Jamie. I’ll get started. Maybe Chris has some color here. What I’d say is just focus on the Prologis platform. What’s different this time is we continue to refine the portfolio. Look at the market share that we’re taking every quarter when you look at the occupancy. Look at the rent growth opportunity we have between the lease mark-to-market of 17%, then there’s another 19, 20% to hit those replacement cost rents. As you look at the direction of travel for rent growth in our core base portfolio, it’s significant, and we’re going to enjoy that for years to come. Then look at our development platform. We just adjusted up our development starts for the second time this year, given the confidence that we have in the markets that we selected to buy this land and develop out our logistics business.
We go to data centers. Look at our continuous growth in data centers and what will come of that. We have been round-tripping these, taking the profits, these significant margins, and putting that back into the core business now for the last few years, as we told you all we would do back in 2023. Look at strategic capital. Strategic capital, we’ve built a few new vehicles already this year. We’ve talked a bit about what we’re doing in data centers. The growth prospects in these core businesses is so substantial. As the CEO here, maybe it’s hard for me to say that I love all my kids the same, right? You need to look at all these great growth opportunities. Haven’t even mentioned energy.
1.3 gigawatts of power that we have on top of our roofs with only 8% of our roofs covered, right? Prologis Essentials continues to be a key driver in leasing. Really great growth opportunities.
Tim Arndt, CFO, Prologis: Thank you, Jamie. Operator, next question.
Operator: Your next question comes from Nick Thillman with Baird. Please state your question.
Nick Thillman, Analyst, Baird: Hey, good morning out there. Maybe a question for Chris, focusing on the U.S. overall. As PLD, as you’ve been looking at rent growth forecasts over the last couple of years, the range has been pretty tight between markets, maybe excluding Southern California. As we sit today between the top and the bottom markets on a next 12-month market rent growth, has that range widened at all? Maybe could you provide your top three markets that you’re expecting over the next month or next year from a rent growth perspective?
Chris Caton, Managing Director, Prologis: Sure. As we put the inflection point behind us, we enter the next phase of growth, there is a fair amount of consistency across markets. There has been a wide dispersion, it’s narrowing. Part of the answer that Dan gave, part of the question that Jamie’s looking for also is, I think we could, over time, be talking about a rotation back to the coast around coastal outperformance. It’s a bit early now. We see it in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, by way of example. In terms of different geographies and the spread, I don’t know that we’ll have any markets with a decline over the next 12 months, the best geographies will definitely outperform inflation.
In terms of the strongest markets right now, that’s going to be in Texas, across the Southeast, and even in the Midwest, the Bay Area, like I mentioned. The softest is probably Seattle. I’d pick Seattle as the softest. Putting it all together, we’re really entering this next phase of growth where replacement cost rents are versus market presents real upside to some of these geographies, especially the coast. It may take some time, really, to emerge to this phase, but we’re moving through it much like we’ve been describing over the last six quarters, and we’ll continue to keep you current on it.
Justin Meng, Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations, Prologis: Thank you, Nick. Operator, next question.
Operator: The next question comes from Brendan Lynch with Barclays. Please go ahead with your question.
Brendan Lynch, Analyst, Barclays: Great. Thanks for taking my question. There’s been a lot of positive commentary about the data center opportunity on the call today. Maybe you could talk a little bit about some of the elements of NIMBYism that are rising, kind of like with the moratorium in New York and seeing a large project being rejected in Northern Virginia. Can you just talk about how you’re anticipating dealing with these dynamics as they seem to be getting more challenging?
Dan Letter, CEO, Prologis: Yeah. No question. The approvals and entitlements continue to be a growing issue. Is certainly a meaningful barrier to supply. All of these projects are super complex, multi-year processes, where you start with the land and the power. You’re securing the entitlements. I’d say that’s really where Prologis differentiates in a big way. We have 110 offices globally. These are local people executing our businesses that many of them born and raised in those markets. They’re part of the fabric of the communities. They understand what makes these communities click. Our goal is to get out as far in front of these issues as we possibly can and ensure the education is there for the local municipalities, for the local communities, so people actually understand what’s happening in these data centers and how they benefit from these projects, not how they’re impacted negatively.
There’s just so much misinformation out there. We saw this moratorium. We’re not impacted by it. We’ve seen similar type issues in logistics over the years. We don’t see that as something that is necessarily going to continue throughout the country or, I guess, countries in which we operate. It’s just the evolution of how these things play out, and it’s on us to be as far out in front of these as we possibly can and be the most responsible data center developer there is.
Justin Meng, Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations, Prologis: Thank you, Brendan. Operator, next question.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Blaine Heck with Wells Fargo. Please state your question.
Jamie Feldman, Analyst, Wells Fargo: Oh, great. Thanks for the follow-up. It’s Jamie again. I know you had commented that you think the European markets are at least 12 months ahead of the U.S. on the recovery. You tend to see a relatively rapid supply reaction in warehouse over cycles. What gives you comfort that Europe still has room to run? Can you talk about the competitive landscape? Maybe that would be helpful.
Chris Caton, Managing Director, Prologis: Hey, Jamie, I’ll get started. Europe is an attractive marketplace. It’s comparable in some ways, but it has a lot of differences. I’d start by saying, look, the demand picture there is really attractive. There’s healthy, secular demand drivers. It’s not just e-commerce, it’s modernizing the supply chain. The demand picture there is equal, if not better than the U.S., particularly on the continent. Something that you may not be familiar with is the stringent barriers to supply. The focus on green space, the entitlements, the planning requirements are greater there. Jamie, I don’t know that I agree with sort of how you phrased the question. I don’t know that supply comes on as quickly as you’re describing. This is a complex business, particularly given the size and scale of the projects that are now more commonplace in the marketplace.
It’s our experience on the ground. We’ve been in the market more than 25 years. We’ve seen multiple cycles there. We have a diversified business. That’s what gives us our confidence.
Justin Meng, Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations, Prologis: Thank you, Jamie. Operator, final question, please.
Operator: Thank you. Our final question for today comes from Vikram Malhotra with Mizuho. Please state your question.
Vikram Malhotra, Analyst, Mizuho: Thanks for taking the additional. I just want to clarify two things. Was the 70 basis points you quoted, was that Q over Q or year-over-year? Do you mind just giving us some color, like what actually happened to average occupancy that dipped in the quarter? The build required in the back half seems a big uplift. Just can you give us some context how we think about occupancy in the back half versus your guide? Thank you.
Chris Caton, Managing Director, Prologis: Hey, Vikram. In terms of market rents, yes, it’s 70 basis points quarter-on-quarter. The one thing that we’re committed to is visibility in the marketplace, and it’s a couple quarters mature now. We have introduced a consensus source for you to be able to see this. It’s on the Prologis IR website. It’s on the prologis.com website, where we go out to four brokerage wonderful partners who build out a consensus with us, and those numbers perfectly match the figures we’re describing here. 20 basis point improvement in the market vacancy. Take a look at that, and there’s historical trending. Those are some of the details to the question you’re asking.
Tim Arndt, CFO, Prologis: Yeah, Vikram, nothing noteworthy on the average. It’s a pattern. Even if you look at our supplemental, where we have average and ending occupancies together in a chart, you see a pretty typical pattern that average is always a little bit lower than ending. It’s just the way leases roll. Often at the beginning of a quarter, we have some elevated roll this year from all the COVID leasing that’s being marched through. What’s important is we’re getting that occupancy rebuilt. As you saw, we’re very proud of the build that we had over the quarter and feel great about the balance of the year.
Operator: Thank you. We have reached the end of the Q&A session, I’ll hand the floor back to management for closing remarks.
Dan Letter, CEO, Prologis: Thank you all for joining us, and thank you to our Prologis colleagues around the world for yet another incredible quarter. We look forward to speaking to you all after the third quarter results. Take care.
Operator: With that, we conclude today’s call. All parties may disconnect. Have a good day.