Chart Courtesy: Prologis
“Amazon and its competitors are often blamed for the death of bricks-and-mortar retail, but the irony is that these online retailers generally achieve fast shipping by investing in real estate—in the form of warehouses rather than stores,” said Kelly.
Bolstering the case for industrial REITs is the fact that demand for this space is being driven by multiple sources, not just e-commerce companies.
“Established players from related industries that already have massive scale are also seeing a chance to compete with Amazon,” adds Kelly. “Both United Parcel Service Inc. and FedEx Corp. have recently announced their own fulfillment programs.”
INDS’s 23 industrial REIT holding had an average market value of $8.89 billion at the end of last year and a price-to-funds from operations ratio of just over 18.
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