Logistics investors set to focus on ‘first mile’

There could be increased appetite from investors for “first-mile” logistic assets as global supply-chain disruption drives a need for firms to improve upstream, business-to-business supply-chain logistics, according to a new report from Knight Frank.

Knight Frank’s latest Future Gazing Report explores the changing requirements and opportunities for first-mile logistics, including how the need for increased resilience is driving a reconfiguring of supply chains, evolving infrastructure requirements and the relocation of manufacturing hubs. The report also analyses the areas in which these trends could create new opportunities and requirements for industrial and logistics real estate.

Knight Frank’s report explores how firms’ safety stock requirements increase in line with upstream spikes in supply lead times. If safety stock accounts for 20 percent of a firms’ U.K. inventory, and maximum lead times increase from 100 days to 140 days (or 40 percent