By Allen Kenney

Industrial REIT ProLogis has partnered with the Singapore government in a $735 million deal to purchase 17 properties across Japan.

Under the terms of the agreement, consumer electronics company Matsushita Group sold the warehouses to ProLogis and the real estate investment arm of the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation. Matsushita, in turn, signed on to lease back 15 of the buildings.

Masato Miki, co-president of ProLogis' Japan operations, said the deal is a sign of things to come from his company.

"Increasingly, large Japanese companies here are seeking to outsource distribution and real estate operations in order to fortify their balance sheets and to focus their business resources on core operations," Miki says. "Given ProLogis' access to capital, the depth of our customer relationships and the leading position we occupy in the market, we are well-positioned to become the real estate partner of choice for corporations adopting this strategy."

The properties purchased in the deal are located across Japan, although more than 60 percent of the total floor area purchased can be found in Tokyo and Osaka. The deal marked ProLogis' second major sale-leaseback agreement of the last year. ProLogis purchased eight distribution facilities from a Japanese cosmetics company in late 2006.

ProLogis also learned in October 2007 that the company had received two awards for its work throughout Europe. The awards–based on the votes of a panel of 100 property professionals for achievements during the course of the year–were presented by United Kingdom real estate trade journal Property Week and Germany's Immobilien Zeitung. One award recognized ProLogis' acquisition of Parkridge as "European Deal of the Year." The other honored the company's environment-friendly park development in the U.K. with the "Green" award for sustainable development.