US listed firms Prologis and AMB Corporation have announced the completion of their merger, forming a giant industrial property specialist with about $46 bn (EUR 34 bn) of assets under management.

The combined portfolio encompasses 56 million m2 of modern distribution facilities located in key gateway markets and logistics corridors in 22 countries.

The new group, named Prologis, will be co-led by Hamid Moghadam, AMB's former CEO, and Walter Rakowich, Prologis' former CEO, through to end-December 2012. At that point Rakowich will retire and Moghadam will become sole CEO.

Until then, Moghadam will focus on shaping the company's vision, strategy and private capital franchise, and Rakowich will focus on operations, specifically the integration of the two platforms and the optimisation of merger synergies.

The company's corporate headquarters will be in San Francisco, and the company's operations headquarters will be in Denver.

The transaction, which was first announced in January this year, will create synergies and be immediately accretive, the company said in a statement on Friday. 'Prologis anticipates it will have an improved cost of capital with greater financial flexibility and that its expanded footprint will generate increased revenue opportunities by allowing it to better serve the needs of its customers,' it added.

Morgan Stanley acted as financial advisor to Prologis, and Greenberg Traurig and Mayer Brown acted as legal advisors to Prologis. J.P. Morgan Securities acted as financial advisor to AMB, and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz acted as legal advisor to AMB.