Prologis Japan REIT to sell up to $1 bln shares in IPO

TOKYO Jan 10 (Reuters) - Nippon Prologis REIT, a real estate trust set up by Prologis Inc, a U.S-based operator of warehouses, said it would sell about 91 billion yen ($1.04 billion) worth of shares in an initial public offering in Japan.

Nippon Prologis, which has assets worth about 173 billion yen, will sell 182,350 shares in Japan and overseas at an estimated price of 500,000 yen per share, the real estate trust said in a filing on Thursday. As many as 9,118 shares may be sold additionally depending on the demand.

Its IPO follows that of GLP J-REIT, a real estate trust for warehouses set up by Singapore's Global Logistic Properties Ltd , which started trading in Japan last month after selling 111 billion yen worth of shares.

The rush of listings by real estate trusts for warehouse operators comes at a time Japan's market for industrial real estate is expected to grow.

The demand for modern warehouses will grow as volume of Internet shopping increases, said Junichi Tazawa, a real estate analyst at Barclays in Tokyo.

"Also, Japanese manufacturers are focusing on their core business and they tend to outsource logistics to cut costs, which creates new demand of warehouses," he added.

Nippon Prologis will set the price on Feb. 4 and trading is expecting to start on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Feb. 14.