Another Bay Area startup is planning to cash in by going public, but it’s not an e-commerce firm or a social network — it’s a warehouse an hour west of San Francisco.
ROX Financial LP is looking to make an initial public offering for a 146,000-square foot warehouse in Oakley, California, currently being leased by Amazon, according to the Wall Street Journal. It is believed to be the first real estate firm to go public despite consisting of a single property.
The startup would use an IPO to form a real estate investment trust to acquire the warehouse, which Amazon has leased for the last 12 years. After that, the company hopes to acquire more warehouses, specifically in hopes of serving Amazon, per a securities filing.
The company has applied to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange’s all-electronic Arca platform, according to the Journal. They are offering 8.25 million shares, with each share listed at $10. They have also proposed to use AMZL as their ticker symbol, further associating themselves with the e-commerce giant.
The 25-acre warehouse in Oakley is currently responsible for preparing orders for last-mile Amazon deliveries. It features automated conveyor systems and has the capability to house electric vehicle charging stations, the Journal reported.
Industrial real estate properties like warehouses are currently seeing a surge as e-commerce continues to rise for both personal and business needs, even as the pandemic wanes. Amazon is already one of the nation’s top industrial tenants, leasing 22 million square feet of industrial space from Prologis alone.
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[WSJ] — Holden Walter-Warner