By Roshan Thomas

Feb 20 (Reuters) - Shares of Australian property and logistics company Goodman Group GMG.AX dropped over 7% at resumption on Thursday, a day after the company raised A$4 billion ($2.54 billion) to fund its data centre business growth plans.

Goodman, which went on a halt on Wednesday, announced it would issue 119.42 million shares at a price of A$33.5 apiece, a 6.9% discount to the Sydney-headquartered firm's last closing on February 18.

"Although the increased liquidity and initial dilutionary impact to earnings is expected to weigh on the share price initially once the share opens post a trading halt, we remain optimistic on the double-digit growth trajectory of the business", analysts at Citi said in a note.

"The funds raised will enable us to optimise the opportunities we're creating over the long term, particularly through our data centre offering, and provide greater financial and operational flexibility to manage the next phase of growth", CEO Greg Goodman said.

The escalating demand for data centres is being fuelled by the increasing use of cloud-based technologies, data migration, and AI and machine learning.

On Wednesday, the company reported a first-half operating profit of A$1.22 billion, marking an 8% increase from the same period last year.

($1 = 1.5773 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Roshan Thomas in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona)

((Roshan.Thomas@thomsonreuters.com))