Stor-Age – The South African Real Estate Success Story Goes Passed Half a Million Customers
Stor-Age Property REIT Limited, South Africa’s leading and largest self storage property fund, has now passed the 500 000 customer mark since inception, a significant milestone for the business and the sector. Stor-Age, the only self storage REIT listed on any emerging market exchange, now trades from a portfolio of more than 100 properties spread across South Africa and the UK.
Now in its 19th year of trading, Stor-Age has grown from its first property in Edgemead, Cape Town, to a total of 107¹ properties across South Africa and the UK. During this time, the company grew to become the largest operator in the region, listed on the JSE, strategically entered the UK market in 2017 and has successfully grown it’s UK brand, Storage King, to become the fifth largest operator in the country.
With a total investment property value of more than R17.0 billion¹, the company now offers over 600 000m2 of space to the public and looks after more than 52 000 customer’s goods across both markets. While the company has achieved remarkable growth, it has also successfully increased the occupancy in its owned portfolio to more than 91.0%.
While Stor-Age, one of only 11 publicly traded self storage Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) globally, has outperformed the listed property index (SAPY) by 150% since listing in 20152, the company has also performed well against its international peers. Data released by Blue Gem Research3 in their February 2025 valuation update note shows that Stor-Age’s five-year total return ranks in fourth place globally against other self storage REITs. This is ahead of National Storage, Australasia’s largest self-storage owner-operator, Shurgard, which operates across seven European markets, and the two largest operators in the UK, Big Yellow and Safestore.
Comments Carlo Bondesio, Stor-Age Head of Operations in South Africa, “Stor-Age is a wonderful South African success story, growing from humble beginnings as a family business in 2006 into one of the leading self storage operators globally and also being one of the standout performers amongst JSE listed REITs over the last decade. Looking back on our listing on the JSE nearly ten years ago, we’ve grown the business from around 130 000m2 to approximately 610 000m2 today and expanded our portfolio from 24 properties at listing to 107 across two markets. While successfully servicing over 500 000 customers is a significant milestone for us, we are still deeply rooted in our values and vision to become the best self storage business in the world.”
With deep product understanding and experience in both an emerging and first-world market, Stor-Age has bold growth ambitions to further expand the portfolio. The company currently has a pipeline comprising 48 000m2, with 11 projects at various stages of completion. Now entering their next five-year strategic growth cycle, Stor-Age plans to continue growing in both markets through new developments, the expansion of existing properties, strategic joint ventures and its highly specialised third-party management offering.
The key to Stor-Age’s success since its inception lies in its strategic focus on prime property locations, a deep product understanding, a customer-centric approach, operational excellence and the integration of technology and digital marketing capabilities. Added to that, the self storage sector is a growth sector globally and has also continued to demonstrate remarkable resilience – as evidenced during the Global Financial Crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.
As Stor-Age looks to the future, the company remains confident in its growth prospects with an excellent opportunity to further expand its presence in both markets.The share closed yesterday at R14.31.
