Stor-Age REIT Archives

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 19^th 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 000m²to approximately 610 000m²today 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.

STOR-AGE DELIVERS POSITIVE OPERATIONAL PERFORMANCE, CONTINUES TO EXECUTE ON ITS NEW LONDON DEVELOPMENT SITE AND GROWS PIPELINE OF UK PROPERTIES TO SIX WITH HINES

Stor-Age Property REIT Limited, South Africa’s leading and largest self storage property fund, announced robust trading results for the four-month period ending 31 January 2025, with total occupancy and average rental rates up.

Stor-Age delivered a strong trading performance in South Africa in Q3 of FY25, ending 31 December 2024, which continued in January 2025. Occupancy in the owned portfolio increased by 5 400m²compared to September 2024, to close at 93.5% at 31 January 2025. The portfolio achieved an average rental rate increase of 7.8% year-on-year.

In the context of a subdued economic environment and relative to publicly traded operators, the UK portfolio’s performance was resilient. With Q3 being the weakest trading quarter seasonally in the UK for the self storage sector, total year-to-date occupancy still ended up 1.5%, increasing by 1 400m². The portfolio achieved an average rental rate increase of 4.1% year-on-year.

The company’s joint venture (JV) properties performed well in both markets, with occupancy since 30 September 2024 increasing by 4 100m²and 2 700m² in South Africa and the UK respectively.

Comments Stor-Age CEO Gavin Lucas, “We are pleased with the continued strong operational performance achieved over the four-month period. Our South African portfolio has performed exceptionally well, while our UK portfolio continued to demonstrate its defensive nature and resilience.”

The company has continued to expand its footprint in both markets. In Cape Town, expansion continued at the Parklands property which will increase the GLA to 6 900m². In the company’s JV with Garden Cities, a purchase agreement was also recently finalised to acquire a parcel of land adjacent to the Sunningdale property, which has performed exceptionally well since its opening in May 2021, to expand the property to 10 500m².

In London, together with its JV partners, the company completed the development of its property in Leyton (located in east London) in January 2025 and progress continued at the Acton property (located in west London), with a targeted completion date of Q1 FY26. The Leyton property will comprise 3 900m² on full fit-out while the Acton property will comprise 5 800m².

Adds Lucas, “There remains an undersupply of high quality self storage properties across both South Africa and the UK providing the group with an excellent opportunity to expand its presence in both markets. The long lease-up period (financing cost implications) required to reach stabilised occupancy at new properties in these high-barrier-to-entry locations also contributes to the defensive nature of our portfolio.”

The company has also continued to make significant progress with its third-party management offering, Management 1^st, particularly with privately owned global real estate investment, development and management firm Hines. In addition to the three property Kent Space portfolio which closed in May 2024, the Hines development pipeline now consists of an additional six properties.

Adds Lucas, “Within the Hines pipeline, two development sites have recently been acquired in Chelmsford and Buckinghamshire. Construction at the first site in Chelmsford, Essex is scheduled to begin in Q1 FY26 and work is underway to submit a detailed planning application for the second site in Buckinghamshire by the end of March. Hines hold exclusivity over the four remaining properties in the pipeline, all of which are in various stages of planning.”

Looking ahead, the company remains focused on further expanding its portfolio while continuing to produce an attractive trading performance. Concludes Lucas, “The outlook for development activity remains positive and we are well positioned to pursue these opportunities with our JV partners as they arise.”

The share closed on Friday at R14.60.