Quarterlytics / Real Estate / REIT - Industrial / Prologis / FY2020 Annual Report

Prologis
Annual Report 2020

PLD · NYSE Real Estate
Claim this profile
Ticker PLD
Exchange NYSE
Sector Real Estate
Industry REIT - Industrial
Employees 1001-5000
← All annual reports
FY2020 Annual Report · Prologis
Loading PDF…
2020 Annual Report

Shareholder Letter 
Shareholder Letter 

|  Financial Highlights 
|  Financial Highlights 

|  Leadership
|  Leadership

Prologis Park Fremont, Fremont, California

2020 Annual Report

Shareholder Letter 
Shareholder Letter 

|  Financial Highlights 
|  Financial Highlights 

|  Leadership
|  Leadership

Dear Fellow Shareholders,

In a year that will forever be linked to COVID-19, Prologis delivered exceptional financial 
results while simultaneously helping our employees, customers and communities 
navigate the unprecedented environment. 

We entered 2020 on the momentum of our strong performance in 2019—delivering 
sector-leading earnings growth, further fortifying our balance sheet and completing 
two significant acquisitions totaling $17 billion: Industrial Property Trust, Inc. (IPT) and 
Liberty Property Trust (LPT). These transactions expanded our customer relationships, 
generated significant revenue and cost synergies, and brought our portfolio to nearly 
1 billion square feet. I am pleased to report that the integration of both acquisitions 
was effectively complete on day one and we achieved the expected annual synergies of 
more than $150 million. 

During the year, we made progress on the Prologis 3Cs, our strategic blueprint for 
driving success and innovation across the organization: Customer Centricity; Change 
Through Innovation and Operational Excellence; and Culture and Talent. These business 
imperatives are the framework for our rapid, efficient and impactful recovery strategy 
that has protected and promoted resiliency among all of our stakeholders. 

Responding to the Pandemic

In early March, our actions centered around our employees, customers and 
communities.  

Keeping Employees Safe

As always, the safety and well-being of our employees and their families is our top 
priority. Our early investments in technology and data infrastructure allowed us to 
transition quickly to remote working to comply with stay-at-home ordinances. Our 
property management and maintenance teams continued to perform standard 
property inspections, but only under strict safety protocols.

I am extremely proud of how our people have rallied 
to take care of each other and our customers.

Prologis Park Beacon Lakes, Miami, Florida

Our crisis communications plan included the rollout of an information portal on our 
company intranet where employees can access up-to-date information and weekly 
video updates from our senior leadership team. In addition, we formed a COVID-19 
task force that met daily to assess business risk. We continue to follow regulations 
and guidance from governmental authorities regarding the containment of the 
coronavirus, as well as parameters set by the World Health Organization, Centers for 
Disease Control and Prevention, and other public health organizations. 

I am extremely proud of how our people have rallied to take care of each other and 
our customers.

Shareholder Letter 

|  Financial Highlights 

|  Leadership

Helping Customers Thrive

The flow of goods through Prologis buildings represents 2.5 percent of global GDP—
and an estimated 4.4 percent of global household consumption. These statistics 
underscore how the pandemic magnified our essential role in helping our customers 
meet the basic daily needs of consumers. 

Even at the onset of the pandemic, the vast majority of our customers stayed open 
for business. Our customer experience teams set up a steady cadence of virtual 
check-ins to understand needs in real time, and our operations teams leaned into 
longstanding supplier relationships to give customers care packages of gloves, 
disinfecting wipes and hand sanitizer.

Moreover, we launched a comprehensive digital transformation initiative to improve 
operational efficiency through the deployment of flexible technology solutions. 
Our Prologis Essentials Marketplace is an online platform that offers goods and 
services curated specifically for our customers. This portal taps into our unmatched 
purchasing power and scale to help our customers procure forklifts, conveyors, 
robotics and janitorial services at favorable rates. 

We continued our work at Prologis Labs, our dedicated technology incubator facility. 
Our teams there design and test leading-edge technology, often in partnership with 
our customers. Through Prologis Ventures, we made noteworthy investments in 
companies focused on building the future of commerce. Also, we initiated multiple 
large-scale, customer-led development projects around the world. 

It is worth noting that our global net promoter score (NPS) increased by 4 points to 
56 in a year when benchmarks from other companies declined—a testament to our 
team’s deep commitment to helping Prologis customers thrive.

We launched a comprehensive digital 
transformation initiative to improve operational 
efficiency through the deployment of flexible 
technology solutions.

Prologis is building the future of commerce with Locus Robotics.

3

2020 Annual ReportShareholder Letter 

|  Financial Highlights 

|  Leadership

Standing With Our Communities 

Underscoring the Need for Resiliency

Our first steps specific to the pandemic occurred in China. We partnered with health 
officials there to donate medical-grade masks and protective clothing in the hope 
of limiting the spread of the virus and easing the burden on local aid workers and 
medical personnel. 

During the year, we made progress on the Prologis 
3Cs, our strategic blueprint for driving success and 
innovation across the organization.

The Prologis Foundation subsequently earmarked $5 million for nonprofits and 
community-based organizations on the frontlines of the response. Feeding America 
and the European Food Bank Federation were our primary partners in this effort; in 
total, the Foundation’s gift funded 8.5 million meals for those in need across the U.S. 
and Europe. 

Our platform plays a vital role in helping people and organizations. Through our 
Space for Good program, we offered buildings and yard space for a variety of 
pandemic-related uses. Several of our facilities supported local, state and federal 
agencies in the U.S. with their efforts, including providing space for vaccine supplies 
and distribution. Hospitals and humanitarian organizations also benefitted from 
Space for Good. As of this writing, we have donated 1.2 million square feet of 
space in 14 markets totaling $9.3 million of in-kind rent. We were a signatory to the 
#StopTheSpread campaign, joining other business leaders in pledging a financial 
commitment for COVID-19 support and recovery.

In 2020, it became tragically clear that the fight against injustice and inequality is a 
shared responsibility, and that systemic racism must be addressed head-on. With 
the protests last summer once again bringing into sharp focus centuries of pain and 
struggle, we stand with those who engage in peaceful and lawful expressions of 
this injustice. We are committed to doing our part to end racial injustice, hatred and 
violence. To date, the Prologis Foundation has committed $1 million to the Equal 
Justice Initiative, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the National Urban 
League, the Center for Policing Equity, Year Up and the Dream Corps.

Prologis Research, the only in-house research division in the REIT space, takes proprietary 
data gathered from our facilities and places that data into context with conversations 
with leaders across multiple sectors. This approach ensures that our customers and 
the financial community receive real-time insights into our business. As the pandemic 
unfolded, Prologis Research published  a three-tiered analysis of the economic impact of 
COVID-19, breaking the pandemic into distinct phases: Stay-at-Home, Recovery and New 
Normal. 

During the Stay-at-Home phase, demand surged in large customer industries such as 
food/beverage, diversified retail, consumer products and transportation/distribution. In 
the Recovery stage, customers who adapted to new patterns of consumer behavior are 
increasingly focused on optimizing their supply chains for the New Normal, which in turn 
requires a reassessment of ideal inventory-to-sales ratios. Historically, customers that 
serve essential and basic daily needs have outperformed during recessions.

We anticipate continued fundamental improvement in 2021 and beyond as our customers 
plan for the long term. In fact, we estimate that 400 million square feet or more of 
additional U.S. logistics real estate demand will be realized in the next two to three years 
as companies adjust to two primary drivers. First, the pandemic accelerated the retail 
revolution. In 2020, the e-commerce penetration rate jumped 480 basis points to 20 
percent of goods sold in the U.S. While we expect the share of goods purchased online 
to grow, a pause later this year would not surprise us, as consumers pivot to services and 
experiences versus goods. Second, we expect higher inventory levels. Inventory-to-sales 
ratios remain near all-time lows. We see early signs of inventory restocking: Containerized 
import volumes in the U.S. rose 21 percent in the fourth quarter and set a quarterly record 
high. Longer term, the need for more resilient supply chains will prompt increasingly 
robust inventories.  

Despite the uncertainty that prevailed in 2020, investment activity across our global 
platform was unabated, reflecting strong demand for high-quality logistics real estate in 
the world’s best locations. Our portfolio and development-ready land bank near large 
population centers is a proven competitive advantage for Prologis customers.

4

2020 Annual ReportShareholder Letter 

|  Financial Highlights 

|  Leadership

Committed to Our Stakeholders During Unprecedented Times

As COVID-19 began to batter communities across the globe, we were ready. We 
mobilized our teams quickly to help our customers, communities and employees, 
working day and night to establish a fast-tracked structure for how to best deploy 
our resources to support those in need. 

Customers

•  COVID-19 RELIEF CENTER: 24/7 support for our customers.

•  PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT: sourcing hard-to-obtain safety gear.

•  PPP1 TOOLKIT: made available within days of legislation to help customers 

understand the resources available to them. 

Communities

•  $5 MILLION global relief fund launched by the Prologis Foundation in 2020 to 

help charities around the world mitigate the impacts of the pandemic. 

•  $9.3 MILLION of in-kind logistics space donated to municipalities, hospitals and 

relief organizations on the frontlines of the COVID-19 response.

Employees

•  SUPPORT BENEFITS: ensure that employees have ample access to resources 
such as telehealth, free testing for COVID-19, quarantine pay and childcare.

•  0% INTEREST LOANS: offered to non-management employees whose 

household incomes were impacted by the pandemic.

Investors

•  RAPID ANALYTICS AND INSIGHTS about our response plans and the impacts 
of the pandemic on logistics real estate in six special reports over four months.

•  THOUGHT LEADERSHIP through such research as our collaboration with MIT 

on the sustainability impacts of e-commerce vs. retail.

•  34% OUTPERFORMANCE over MSCI REIT Index during the pandemic.2

1. Paycheck Protection Program, a U.S. federal loan program helping businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

2. Since March 11, 2020, the official start of the pandemic per the World Health Organization.

In Closing

The guiding principles of our 3Cs positioned us to deliver a rapid and impactful 
response while producing exceptional financial results for our shareholders. Since the 
AMB/ProLogis merger in 2011, our 10-year dividend compound annual growth rate of 
8.4 percent has increased commensurate with our core earnings. In 2021, we expect 
to generate more than $1.0 billion in free cash flow after dividends and maintain a low 
dividend AFFO payout ratio in the mid-60 percent range.

Despite the uncertainty that prevailed in 2020, 
investment activity across our global platform was 
unabated, reflecting strong demand for high-quality 
logistics real estate.

The company’s success in 2020 would not have been possible without the courage and 
commitment of our employees. I want to thank them for their diligence, generosity and 
positive spirit. Though our accomplishments in 2020 were significant, the prospects 
for our future are the most exciting to us. From San Francisco to London to Shanghai, 
we have the unmatched scale to deliver value to our customers and produce industry-
leading returns for our shareholders and investors.

On behalf of our Prologis team, thank you for your ongoing support and confidence. 

Sincerely,

Hamid R. Moghadam 
Chairman and CEO, Prologis, Inc. 

5

2020 Annual Report 
Shareholder Letter 

|  Financial Highlights 

|  Leadership

Prologis Elizabeth Seaport, Elizabeth, New Jersey

Financial Highlights

ASSETS UNDER 
MANAGEMENT
(in billions)

REVENUE  
SUMMARY
(in billions)

DEVELOPMENT  
VALUE CREATION1
(in millions)

2020

2019

2018

2020

2019

2018

$148.3

$118.4

$86.7

CORE FFO
(per diluted share)

DIVIDENDS PER 
COMMON SHARE

$3.80

$3.31

$3.03

$4.4

$3.3

$2.8

$2.32

$2.12

$1.92

NET INCOME
(in billions)

$942

$911

$661

$1.47

$1.57

$1.64

Please see Prologis’ Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020, and our Q4’20 earnings supplemental for additional detail regarding the financial information presented in 
this annual report and definitions and reconciliations of non-GAAP measurements, such as Core FFO.

1. Prologis’ share of estimated value creation from development stabilizations

6

2020 Annual ReportShareholder Letter 

|  Financial Highlights 

|  Leadership

Senior Leaders

Hamid R. Moghadam 
Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer 
Click to read bio

Thomas S. Olinger 
Chief Financial Officer 
Click to read bio

Eugene F. Reilly 
Chief Investment Officer 
Click to read bio

Gary E. Anderson 
Chief Operating Officer 
Click to read bio

Edward S. Nekritz 
Chief Legal Officer and  
General Counsel 
Click to read bio

Colleen McKeown 
Chief Human Resources  
Officer 
Click to read bio

Michael S. Curless 
Chief Customer Officer 
Click to read bio

Board of Directors

Hamid R. Moghadam 
Chairman of the Board  
of Directors and Chief  
Executive Officer 
Click to read bio  

Cristina G. Bita 
Vice President of  
Finance, Google 
Click to read bio

George L. Fotiades 
President and Chief Executive 
Officer, Cantel Medical Corp. 
Click to read bio

Lydia H. Kennard 
Principal, Airport Property 
Ventures, LLC; Founder and 
Chief Executive Officer, KDG 
Construction Consulting 
Click to read bio

Irving F. Lyons III 
Principal, Lyons Asset 
Management 
Click to read bio

Avid Modjtabai 
Former Senior Executive  
Vice President, Payments, 
Virtual Solutions and 
Innovation, Wells Fargo 
Click to read bio

David P. O’Connor 
Managing Partner, High Rise 
Capital Partners, LLC 
Click to read bio

Olivier Piani 
Chief Executive Officer and 
Founder of OP Conseils; 
Senior Consultant, Ardian 
Click to read bio

Jeffrey L. Skelton 
Former Managing Partner, 
Resultant Capital Partners 
Click to read bio

Carl B. Webb 
Senior Partner, Ford 
Management, LP 
Click to read bio

William D. Zollars 
Former Chairman, President 
and Chief Executive Officer, 
YRC Worldwide Inc. 
Click to read bio

7

2020 Annual Report