Latest news with #PLD


Business Wire
2 days ago
- Business
- Business Wire
PL Developments Builds a Smarter, Healthier Supply Chain with Kinaxis
OTTAWA, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Kinaxis ® (TSX:KXS), a global leader in end-to-end supply chain orchestration, today announced that PL Developments (PLD), a leading manufacturer and distributer of over-the-counter pharmaceuticals and healthcare products, has selected the Kinaxis Maestro™ platform to meet growing demand from consumers and major U.S. retailer partners. By replacing manual tools and spreadsheets with AI-powered orchestration and predictive planning, PLD will accelerate the delivery of essential healthcare products with greater agility, accuracy and efficiency. 'With Maestro, they're not just replacing spreadsheets, they're unlocking real-time visibility, rapid execution and scalable decision making." Specializing in end-to-end solutions from product development to distribution, PLD supplies some of the largest retailers in the U.S. including Walmart, Walgreens, CVS, Costco, Sam's Club and Target with health and wellness products in categories including analgesics, cough/cold, allergy and digestive. Due to market expansion and rapidly increasing consumer demand for accessible and affordable healthcare products, PLD needed to deliver to its retail partners with greater speed, accuracy and responsiveness. With manual planning tools and siloed decision-making, PLD was challenged by limited visibility across its operations leading to delayed order confirmations and high inventory levels. To maintain its position as a trusted industry leader, PLD needed a next-generation supply chain platform to meet evolving customer expectations while continuing to deliver on the promise of quality at every step. After rigorous evaluation, Maestro stood out for its unmatched ability to unify data and provide real-time insights, enabling predictive planning to anticipate demand. Maestro allows PLD to optimize inventory, respond faster to market shifts and scale execution across every function of the business with fewer resources and greater supply chain visibility. 'Consumers expect fast access to trusted health and wellness products, and our retail partners need the inventory to match shifting demand,' s aid Thomas Crowe, chief supply chain officer at PL Developments. 'With Maestro, we can anticipate this demand, simulate scenarios, plan for market shifts and make confident, data-driven decisions in minutes. It's a game changer that empowers our team to deliver the innovation and products consumers rely on every single day and Kinaxis is now a key part of that innovation.' 'PLD is a prime example of a forward-thinking manufacturer embracing the speed and intelligence today's healthcare supply chains demand,' said Mark Morgan, president of global commercial operations at Kinaxis. 'With Maestro, they're not just replacing spreadsheets, they're unlocking real-time visibility, rapid execution and scalable decision making. We're proud to support PLD as they deliver the trusted healthcare products consumers rely on, faster and more efficiently than ever.' To learn more about Kinaxis and its supply chain management solutions, please visit About Kinaxis Kinaxis is a global leader in modern supply chain orchestration, powering complex global supply chains and supporting the people who manage them, in service of humanity. Our powerful, AI-infused supply chain orchestration platform, Maestro™ combines proprietary technologies and techniques that provide full transparency and agility across the entire supply chain — from multi-year strategic planning to last-mile delivery. We are trusted by renowned global brands to provide the agility and predictability needed to navigate today's volatility and disruption. For more news and information, please visit or follow us on LinkedIn. Source: Kinaxis Inc
Yahoo
04-08-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Prologis sees narrow window before warehouse rents increase
Despite navigating weaker demand and uncertainty around trade policy, logistics real estate customers 'looked beyond short-term volatility to activate long-term plans' in the second quarter, according to Prologis' Industrial Business Indicator (IBI) report. While the real estate market remains in flux, indicators like net absorption and new leasing activity improved from the first quarter. The San Francisco-based real estate investment trust acknowledged that decision making among tenants has been extended given macroeconomic uncertainties, but said buyers in the market looking for space, proposal volumes and signed leases were all up in the period. Well-capitalized, large-scale tenants are moving forward with the build-to-suit projects that will be required to facilitate their long-term growth plans, the Monday report said. Prologis (NYSE: PLD) noted an uptick in nearshoring and reshoring activity as well as domestic demand from international companies. 'Real-time indicators and direct feedback from users suggest that space needs persist, and that demand is poised to reaccelerate once greater clarity emerges around pricing and broader economic conditions,' the report said. Leasing activity recovered during May and June, following a slowdown after April's Liberation Day tariff announcements, according to Prologis. Warehouse space utilization averaged 85% in the second quarter, a 50 basis-point increase from full-year 2024. The improvement was in part due to some customers pulling forward inventories in response to quickly changing tariff policies. Utilization slid in July, but the report said it was likely due to a sell-through of certain merchandise (temporarily drawing down warehouse inventories) and choppiness in container imports to the U.S. 'We maintain that utilization will be volatile in the near term as shifting trade policies disrupt typical import patterns but generally trend upward as companies grow into any excess capacity.' The report said supply risk, or overcapacity, in many U.S. markets is now 'largely in the past' as speculative development starts have declined by 75% from the peak and second-half warehouse deliveries will be 30% lower year over year. 'This dynamic is creating a short-term window of opportunity for customers,' the report said. 'Prime space options are available in select locations, but these are expected to diminish as the pipeline of new deliveries slows and competition for quality product increases.' The pace of declines in market rents slowed to just 1.4% in the quarter. The change has been largely due to price resets in the West Coast markets. The report concluded that long-term structural drivers, like e-commerce growth and the need to modernize operations, remain intact. With new supply falling, the current environment 'presents a narrow and time-sensitive window of opportunity for users to secure prime logistics real estate before rents increase.' According to a separate report, Prologis said nearly $3.2 trillion worth of goods, or 2.9% of the world's GDP, moved through its warehouses last year. The study conducted with Oxford Economics showed Prologis' 1.3 billion square feet of space contributed $348 billion to the global economy, supporting 3.6 million jobs. More FreightWaves articles by Todd Maiden: XPO sees 'massive runway' to push margins higher Schneider National not yet choosing sides on potential changes to railroad landscape ArcBest's efficiency initiatives helping offset soft demand The post Prologis sees narrow window before warehouse rents increase appeared first on FreightWaves.

RNZ News
22-07-2025
- Politics
- RNZ News
Education Ministry says new curriculums are much clearer
The Education Ministry said the new curriculums were much clearer about what needed to be taught each year. Photo: 123RF The Education Ministry says its staff have a clear understanding of what the term 'knowledge-rich' means. A ministry document from March warned its work on the new school curriculum was suffering because it did not have a clear definition of the term, which was central to the entire project. But the ministry's acting curriculum centre hautu (leader) Pauline Cleaver told RNZ's Midday Report it was not a problem. "It's fully understood by our team and our PLD [professional learning and development], alongside the curriculum that we've already produced is working really well and our response from teachers about the English curriculum for Year 1 to 8 and the maths is going really well. People are really seeing what a knowledge-rich curriculum looks like," she said. Cleaver said the already-published curriculums were examples of knowledge-rich. "It's really well structured, it's got clear content. The things that we want young people to know and the things that we want them to know how to do, they're sequenced in a year-by-year way so that the knowledge builds over time and they get a nice coherent learning pathway. That the learning is managed and taught in nice structured ways, such as you see through our structured literacy programmes and their teachers have real clarity on what needs to be taught and what students should be learning at any particular point on the pathway." She said the new curriculums were much clearer about what needed to be taught each year. But Principals Federation president Leanne Otene told RNZ the curriculum changes were chaotic and imploding. She said the government was changing too much, too fast and the training for teachers and principals was insufficient. "We've had multiple announcements, and they're disconnected initiatives and they are creating chaos," she said. Otene said primary schools were teaching new English and maths curriculums without sufficient training and without assessment tools to test children's achievement against the new curriculums. She said the key ideas underpinning the curriculum change, science of learning and knowledge rich were "mentioned everywhere, defined nowhere" PPTA vice-president Kieran Gainsford said at a recent meeting of subject association leaders, many were worried that the government had not provided a clear explanation of what it meant by terms like "science of learning" and "knowledge-rich curriculum". "It leaves schools and teachers in almost a hopeless position. If we're supposed to implement a new curriculum, we want to do a good job. We want to do the best for the young people in front of us. But if we're given such unclear guidance, that leaves us in a very difficult position to be able to do that," he said. Meanwhile, Cleaver told RNZ the ministry was using AI to help with background work on the curriculum. "We have used AI to help us synthesise a range of research, what other countries are doing, how we're comparing with the content we're choosing to make sure we're doing the best job possible. It's not a replacement for our writers. It's information that our writers can use to be more effective at making sure we get this right," she said. "It's not writing the curriculum now. We have real teachers, real educators writing the content." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Yahoo
17-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Prologis Inc (PLD) Q2 2025 Earnings Call Highlights: Strong Performance Amid Market Challenges
Core FFO: $1.46 per share including net promote income; $1.47 per share excluding net promotes. Occupancy Rate: Ended the quarter at 95.1%, outperforming the market by 290 basis points. Rent Change: Monetized $75 million of NOI with a 53% net effective rent change and 35% on cash. Same-Store Growth: Net effective growth at 4.8% and cash growth at 4.9%. Development Starts: Over $900 million in new development starts, with $1.1 billion in build-to-suit starts for the first half of the year. Data Center Investment: $300 million investment in Austin, Texas, with a top hyperscaler. Solar Production and Storage: Nearly 1.1 gigawatts either in operation or under development. Financing Activity: Closed on $5.8 billion, including a $3 billion recast of a global credit line. Liquidity: Over $7 billion at quarter end. Guidance for Core FFO: $5.75 to $5.80 per share including net promote expense; $5.80 to $5.85 per share excluding net promote expense. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 7 Warning Signs with PLD. Release Date: July 16, 2025 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. Positive Points Prologis Inc (NYSE:PLD) exceeded expectations in the second quarter, showcasing strong performance in a challenging environment. The company achieved a significant rent change in same-store growth and maintained strong build-to-suit activity. Prologis Inc (NYSE:PLD) reported a high leasing pipeline, indicating promising customer interest and potential future growth. The company increased its development starts guidance, reflecting confidence in future demand and successful build-to-suit projects. Prologis Inc (NYSE:PLD) maintained a strong balance sheet with $7 billion in liquidity and expanded its commercial paper program, enhancing financial flexibility. Negative Points Market vacancy rates have risen slightly, and net absorption remains subdued, indicating potential challenges in the leasing environment. The company experienced net outflows in its strategic capital business, with approximately $300 million in open-ended vehicle outflows. Prologis Inc (NYSE:PLD) noted that market rents declined by approximately 1.4% during the quarter, reflecting some pricing pressure. The company anticipates choppy market conditions over the next few quarters, with uncertainty impacting customer decision-making. Bad debt levels remain elevated compared to historical norms, indicating potential credit risks among tenants. Q & A Highlights Q: Can you elaborate on the historically high leasing pipeline and its impact on development starts and acquisitions? A: Chris Caton, Managing Director, noted the pipeline is up 19% year-on-year, showing diversity across deal stages and customer industries. Larger customers are increasingly engaging, particularly in spaces over 100,000 square feet. Daniel Letter, President, added that the $1 billion increase in development starts includes $300 million for a data center and a mix of build-to-suit and speculative projects, with a strong pipeline in place. Q: Could you provide more color on the cadence of leasing activity throughout the quarter? A: Daniel Letter, President, explained that while volume was initially down 20% post-tariff surprises, it accelerated through May and June, ending the quarter only 10% below normal. Chris Caton added that they monitor a wide range of metrics, including lease signings and customer engagement, to provide a comprehensive update. Q: What drove the increase in FFO guidance, and how does it relate to occupancy and pricing expectations? A: Tim Arndt, CFO, stated that improved visibility and outperformance in the quarter led to increased confidence in guidance. Despite unchanged occupancy expectations, the environment has stabilized since April, and they anticipate landing at the stronger end of the same-store NOI growth range. Q: How are you thinking about the timing of the growing pipeline translating to signed leases, given the choppy conditions? A: Chris Caton noted that decision-making remains deliberate, with deals piling up as customers seek macro clarity. Hamid Moghadam, CEO, emphasized that while uncertainty persists, larger customers are increasingly unable to defer space needs, indicating potential future demand. Q: Can you discuss the impact of automation and higher power demands on warehouse space and how Prologis is managing this? A: Hamid Moghadam highlighted that automation and EV charging could increase power demands significantly. Daniel Letter mentioned that Prologis is proactively addressing this with new energy generation solutions, leveraging expertise from their mobility business to bridge gaps in utility capacity. For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
Yahoo
16-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Prologis says warehouse ‘demand is piling up'
Logistics warehouse operator Prologis boasted a record leasing pipeline as 'broader economic uncertainty begins to clear' following April's Liberation Day tariff announcements. The company cautioned that conditions will likely 'remain choppy' over the next few quarters but said leased space utilization is increasing and 'demand is piling up.' The San Francisco-based real estate investment trust said Wednesday that customers are actively signing leases, albeit at a slower-than-normal pace. The company's leasing pipeline of 130 million square feet was up 19% year over year in the second quarter and now stands at 'historically high levels.' 'With every passing day there's more water building up behind the dam,' said Hamid Moghadam, Prologis co-founder and CEO, on a quarterly call with analysts. 'I think every bit of business that's delayed is going to translate to more business in the future.' Occupancy across Prologis' (NYSE: PLD) portfolio was 94.9% in the second quarter, 120 basis points lower y/y, but level with the first quarter as market conditions appear to have stabilized. The company ended the quarter with the portfolio 95.1% occupied, which it said is 290 bps ahead of the broader market. Prologis reported second-quarter core funds from operations (FFO) of $1.46 per share before the market opened on Wednesday, which was 4 cents above the consensus estimate and 12 cents higher y/y. Total revenue increased 9% to $2.18 billion as new leases commenced rose 10% to 51.2 million square feet. Leasing activity slumped 20% shortly after the April tariff announcements but improved throughout the period, ending the quarter just 10% lower than normal. Roughly one-third of Prologis' leasing activity in the quarter came from 3PLs. That was a little lower than the prior two quarters, but those periods saw outsized activity from logistics operators. The company raised its full-year FFO guidance range to $5.80 to $5.85 per share, which was roughly 1% higher than the prior guide at the midpoint of the range. The new outlook assumes average occupancy in a range of 94.75% to 95.25% and development starts between $2.25 billion and $2.75 billion. The new guide for starts is back in line with the company's initial outlook for 2025, which was issued in January. Importantly, Moghadam said that the market has seen a 7.4% median vacancy rate since 2000, with vacancy exceeding that level 44% of the time. He believes the market has already topped out at a mid-7% vacancy rate and noted that at 5% vacancy, the landlord regains pricing power. (Market rents were off 1.4% in the quarter.) A fear of missing out and inflationary concerns are likely to push tenants away 'from being very conservative to being much more aggressive,' Moghadam said. 'I think if you have people that are pulling the trigger on big capital improvements … they are going to take comfort by seeing other people make the same decisions.' Shares of PLD were up 1.4% at 2:28 p.m. EDT on Wednesday compared to the S&P 500, which was up 0.2%. More FreightWaves articles by Todd Maiden: J.B. Hunt still waiting for market to turn LTL pricing index to hit record high in Q3 June produces mixed freight trends, recovery remains 'elusive' The post Prologis says warehouse 'demand is piling up' appeared first on FreightWaves. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data