Blackstone appoints bankers for potential £11bn float of warehouse business

Private equity firm Blackstone has appointed bankers to oversee a giant market listing of its warehouse property arm Logicor.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citi, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley will work up an initial public offering for the company, which provides logistics space for firms such as Amazon and DHL. The listing could value the company at close to £11bn, reports have suggested, making Logicor one of the largest companies to list in London in recent years if it goes ahead.

After a tumultuous year for listings in 2016 when a number of planned floats were pulled, analysts are hopeful that 2017 will hold more stock market activity.

Software company Misys, car parts-maker TI Fluid Systems, and fitness chain Pure Gym all abandoned planned floats last year. But accountancy firm EY said at the end of 2016 that this year could see a resurgence of the UK IPO market as firms look to take advantage of global investor interest driven by a recovery in market pricing.

A float for Logicor has been on the cards for almost a year, while Blackstone also considered a sale of the business, which it created through its property arm five years ago.

Property agent Eastdil is understood to still be working on a potential sale.

Logicor is one of the largest owners of logistics property in Europe, and the UK is its largest market by value, with a portfolio totalling 21.4m sq ft across 68 distribution warehouses.