Opportunistic Yet Leveraging Secondary Offering From Digital Realty (DLR)

Digital Realty Trust (NYSE: DLR) has been one of those REITs we have loved for some time, but one where we feel the price has grown too excessive.  Now the company which we call “The Landlord of the Cloud” is planning to sell 8.25 million shares of its common stock in an underwritten public secondary offering.  What is interesting is that the company intends to contribute the net proceeds from this offering to its operating partnership, Digital Realty Trust, L.P., to fund a portion of the purchase price for the acquisition of a three-property data center portfolio located in the greater London area. This area is the Sentrum Portfolio and the purchase price is roughly $1.1 billion to be paid for by this offering and from cash on hand and additional debt and a bridge loan.

Digital Realty also said that it may temporarily repay debt under its global revolving credit facility, or it can acquire additional properties, fund development and redevelopment opportunities, or for general working capital purposes.

BofA Merrill Lynch and Citigroup are the joint book-running managers for the offering.

This offering would bring in more than $580 million in gross proceeds at the closing price of $73.25 and the 52-week range is $50.63 to $76.04 and its market capitalization is just over $8 billion. Maybe this will finally take the price down to a more attractive level. Still, this transaction is being paid for by an issuance of about 7% as well as leveraging up more debt.

JON C. OGG