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Self Storage Giant Doubles Size of Wrexham Site After £150K Revamp

Business is booming for a fast-growing self storage company which has just re-opened one of its Wrexham storage parks after a £150,000 refurbishment. That included an extension to their Whitegates facility, on the town’s Queensway, by Lock Stock Self-Storage which has more than doubled its capacity to 130 units with a quarter of a million cubic metres of storage space. This was one of the company’s first sites and opened in 2003 and we added a second site on Ruabon Road four years ago and its 180 storage units are…

Carlisle, England

Market of the Month is a regular feature in List Self Storage where we focus on a particular city and then delve into StorTrack’s substantial data reserves to find some interesting and informative insights into the market from a self storage business perspective. This month, we take a look at Carlisle, England, the “Great Border City”. The City Home to the main campuses of the University of Cumbria and a variety of museums and heritage centres, Carlisle has a population of 109,183. During the Middle Ages, because of its proximity…

Janus International Completes Merger to Become Public Company

Janus International Group, a manufacturer of doors and other products for self-storage and industrial facilities, has joined the small cadre of publicly traded companies in the self storage industry. Janus’ stock started trading June 8 on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock opened the day at $14 per share and closed at $13.89 per share. In December, Janus executives estimated the stock listing would lead to a market capitalization of $1.4 billion and an equity valuation of $1.9 billion. A ‘blank check’ merger Temple, GA-based Janus went public through…

Acquisition Review: Rent-A-Space Shrewsbury

The Deal Recently, Heitman LLC., a global real estate investment management firm, acquired Rent-A-Space Shrewsbury. The investment marks the first acquisition expanding Space Station, a UK self storage platform that a Heitman affiliate acquired in late 2020, and is the platform’s first storage solution in the West Midlands region. Upon acquisition of the property, Heitman plans to complete the remaining lease-up of the asset while converting bulk space into additional conventional self storage units as part of the value proposition of the acquisition. The Facility The asset was purpose-built in…

Kangaroo Self-Storage Appoints Bryan Lee as New Chief Financial Officer

Dundee-founded storage firm Kangaroo Self-Storage has appointed Bryan Lee as its chief financial officer as it accelerates plans for growth as the country starts to come out of lockdown. Mr Lee joins the Board to lead the storage company’s finance and IT function and will be responsible for the mergers and acquisitions strategy and the raising of funding to finance growth. Mr Lee is a chartered accountant with almost 25 years of experience in industry and commerce, who has held leadership positions in publicly quoted, private-equity backed and family-owned businesses.…

Commercial Property: Room for Growth in Self Storage Sector

People decluttering to make space for home offices, a booming property market and the growth of online retailers have all led to the use of self storage space in the UK reaching a record level of 82 per cent of lettable space occupied. This new high coincides with the largest annual increase in occupancy levels since records began in 2004. Revenues of self storage operators increased by 16 per cent annually to £890 million in 2020, as clients retained their services longer due to lockdowns and more enquiries moved online…

Heitman Expands UK’s Oldest Private Self Storage Platform

Heitman LLC (“Heitman”), a global real estate investment management firm, has announced the acquisition of Rent-A-Space Shrewsbury, a high-quality UK self storage asset by an affiliate of Heitman. The investment marks the first acquisition expanding Space Station, a UK self storage platform that a Heitman affiliate acquired in late 2020, and is the platform’s first storage solution in the West Midlands region. The asset was purpose-built in 2016 and comprises approximately 58,000 square feet of net rentable area and is in the final stages of its lease-up. Upon acquisition of…

List Self Storage Expands to United Kingdom

List Self Storage (ListSelfStorage.com; “List”), the premier online platform for connecting buyers and sellers of self storage facilities, development land and conversion opportunities, has launched ListSelfStorage.co.uk to serve the growing property acquisition community in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. List Self Storage is a product of StorTrack, the world’s leading self storage data provider. “The growth in demand in the UK is fueling increased investment and development in self storage, just as it continues to do in the US and elsewhere. List has proven success in connecting buyers and…

Safestore outperforms but challenges may lie ahead

It is not just those selling houses that stand to benefit from a surge in property transactions. Self-storage specialist Safestore (SAFE) outperformed analyst earnings expectations during 2020 as both occupancy and average store rates improved. Closing occupancy stood at 80.8 per cent at the end of October, up from 77.6 per cent on a like-for-like basis the same time the prior year. That included a record fourth-quarter performance in which 228,000 square feet of occupancy was added. Safestore has estimated that UK owner-occupied housing transactions drive around 10-15 per cent…