Category: Recent Transactions

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…

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…

Carlyle, Safestore JV buys Dutch self-storage operator Opslag XL

The Carlyle Group and Safestore’s joint venture has invested an undisclosed amount to buy Opslag XL, a self-storage operator with three stores in The Netherlands. Opslag XL’s 75,000sqft portfolio includes two freehold locations in The Hague and Hilversum regions and one short leasehold in Amsterdam. The Carlyle Group has an 80% shareholding in the joint venture which was established in August 2019 via the €540m Carlyle Europe Realty (CER) fund, with the FTSE 250-listed Safestore holding the remaining 20% stake in the venture. This acquisition represents CER’s third add-on acquisition…

Padlock Partners UK Fund I Purchases Cinch Self Storage

Padlock Partners UK Fund I, which operates six facilities in England, acquired Cinch Self Storage in Bicester, a market town northwest of London, for £3,200,000. The three-story facility at 1 Arkwright Road opened in 2018 and comprises 25,000 square feet. Padlock operates facilities in Bicester, Chippenham, Letchworth, Leighton Buzzard, Newmarket and Wimbledon, England. Source

Acquisition Review

The Deal Recently, Storage King acquired Blackpool Self Store in Blackpool, England for £3.6 million. Storage King, which operates 29 facilities in the United Kingdom, is owned by Stor-Age Property REIT and operates the Stor-Age Self Storage brand in South Africa. The Facility Opened in 2005, the facility comprises 30,100 square feet and offers room for expansion. The facility at 20 Clifton Road is in the Tellcom Business Centre.  With data from StorTrack, we took a closer look at the market demographics to learn what made this facility an attractive…

Blackpool Self Store Sells for £3.6 Million

Storage King, which operates 29 facilities in the United Kingdom, acquired Blackpool Self Store in Blackpool, England, for £3.6 million. The facility at 20 Clifton Road is in the Tellcom Business Centre. Opened in 2005, it comprises 30,100 square feet, with room for expansion. Storage King is owned by Stor-Age Property REIT, which operates the Stor-Age Self Storage brand in South Africa. Source

National Expansion Plans for North East Storage Specialist with New Franchising Scheme

A North East storage company has announced plans to expand nationwide as it launches a new franchise programme. U Hold The Key, based in Stockton-on-Tees, said that it has seen a “surge in demand” for self storage throughout the pandemic and has accelerated the development of its franchise plans in response. Looking Forward The company, which is a division of Parsons Containers Group, said that it expects to open its first franchised site this summer, and will expand into new territories with the scheme. It reported a 15 per cent…

Padlock Partners UK Fund II Files Preliminary Prospectus for Initial Public Offering

Padlock Partners UK Fund II announced today that it has filed with the securities commissions or similar authorities in each of the provinces and territories of Canada, and obtained a receipt for a preliminary prospectus for an initial public offering of trust units. The preliminary prospectus qualifies the distribution of a minimum of C$20 million and a maximum of C$40 million of Class A Units, Class F Units, Class C Units and/or Class U Units of the Trust at a price of C$10.00 per Class A Unit, Class F Unit…