GlobeSt.com EXCLUSIVE: ProLogis' CFO Speaks Out

DENVER-Walter Rakowich, CFO of locally based ProLogis, the enormous industrial real estate investment trust, isn’t disappointed that PLD’s first-quarter earnings weren’t as strong as they were in the same period of 2002. Indeed, in an exclusive interview with GlobeSt.com, he was quite bullish, as the REIT builds its operations as far away as China and Japan, as well as kicking off a $100 million industrial park at I-70 and E-470 in Aurora, east of Denver.

“We’re very happy with earnings for quarter,” Rakowich tells GlobeSt.com. “We had very strong perfomance in a weak economy. And we had ancicipated our earnings would be down a bit.”

He notes the company will be investing $1 billion to $1.5 billion in China over the next three to four years, and and equal amount in Japan during that time period. Conventional economic wisdom has it that China will grow in future decades, but Japan is something less expected. The depressed economy in Japan plans to the strength of ProLogis, he says.