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Insights

The latest news and events at Maples Teesdale

| 1 minute read

Amazon is not the (only) industrial warehousing bellwether

Let's start with the obvious: over the last few years, the industrial/logistics market generally has been enjoying a boom. In no small part, Amazon has fed that investor appetite (accounting for 35% of H1 2021 figures). 

More recently, Amazon has announced a scaling back from the market, and that had an immediate effect on the pricing of the UK's listed industrial players (see this from May: https://www.egi.co.uk/news/has-industrial-passed-its-peak/). Interest rate rises should also have had something of a dampening effect on any leveraged transactions, and therefore some effect on pricing.

However, the gloomy talk has not yet translated into a complete stalling of deals. Clearly, there are other occupiers in the market, with Colliers research asserting that the overall take-up of 100,000+ sq ft space in H1 2022 is down only 14% against the record-breaking H1 of 2021 (and we can't expect records to keep being broken). Third-party logistics providers took 40.5% of H1 2022 space. We also see that rents continue to grow at some staggering rates.

So, there are other occupiers (perhaps 3PM will replace Amazon as the poster-child for industrial warehousing?), and there are too many other factors (including supply pipeline/supply chain and occupiers' environmental/sustainability concerns), which mean that Amazon's stepping back does not (necessarily) mean the death knell for the continued upward trajectory of this investment market.

the gap left by Amazon’s withdrawal had been largely filled by 3PLs

Tags

charles elgood, commercial real estate, industrial & logistics, warehouse, amazon, industrial, logistics, occupiers