Category: Finance News

Big Yellow Group Completes Armadillo Acquisition with Placing Funds

Big Yellow Group PLC on Thursday said it has completed its acquisition of Armadillo with funds from a recent placing. The Surrey, England-based self storage provider revealed plans to acquire the remaining 80% stake in Armadillo, last Wednesday. The purchase was funded by a placing worth GBP100 million from of 7.8 million shares, priced at 1,290 pence each, completed last Thursday. Big Yellow now owns 100% of Armadillo, which includes both Armadillo Storage Holding Company Ltd and Armadillo Storage Holding Company 2 Ltd. Big Yellow Group shares were trading down…

Abacus (ASX:ABP) Grabs Self Storage Portfolio for $160 Million

Abacus Property Group (ABP) has acquired a portfolio of self storage assets managed by Storage Kings in Sydney for $160 million. The portfolio of five assets provides more than 25,000 square metres of net lettable area and comprises three stores located in Chatswood, Artarmon and St Leonards. The assets are located within tightly held catchments, benefitting from significant self storage demand generated from above average household incomes, large proportions of renters and continually increasing density from apartment development” It also includes a site in Dee Why and a newly developed…

EU Investors Back $100 Million ‘COVID-19 Opportunity Fund’

Jameson Capital secured $25 million from two European cornerstone investors for a $100 million fund that will provide debt and take equity positions in real estate opportunities created COVID-19. Last-mile logistics, childcare, seniors living, self storage, data centres, medium density residential housing and healthcare are being targeted for the so-called special situations fund. As a secured lender will we will also share in exposure to any upside by taking a share of the profits at the end of the project” “We’ll be making loans to asset owners in various sectors,” said…

Safestore and Carlyle’s Joint Venture Acquires Self Storage Portfolio in The Netherlands

Global investment firm The Carlyle Group (NASDAQ: CG) and Safestore (FTSE 250: SAFE) today announced that their joint venture, established in August 2019, has acquired Opslag XL, a self storage operator with three stores in The Netherlands. The portfolio comprises three high-quality self storage stores, including two freehold locations in The Hague and Hilversum regions and one short leasehold in Amsterdam. The assets total c.7,000 sq metres (75,000 sq ft) of maximum leasable area. The Dutch self storage market offers an attractive opportunity given it is a still highly fragmented…

Big Yellow Raises £100 Million for Acquisitions

The self storage company sold 7.75 million new shares for £12.90 each – a 0.9% discount to the closing price on 23 June. The shares represent 4.4% of Big Yellow’s ordinary share capital before the placing. The placing has been successfully completed, and we are very grateful to our shareholders for their support.” The placing raised £100m before costs. Announcing the share sale after the market closed on Wednesday, Big Yellow said it was raising cash to fund £145m of acquisitions. The company will pay £119m including debt to buy…

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…

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…

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…

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…