{"id":8092,"date":"2025-02-24T11:00:04","date_gmt":"2025-02-24T09:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sareit.co.za\/?p=8092"},"modified":"2026-03-26T10:13:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T08:13:27","slug":"stor-age-delivers-postive-operational-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/muddev.co.za\/sareit\/stor-age-delivers-postive-operational-performance\/","title":{"rendered":"Stor-Age delivers postive operational performance"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wpb-content-wrapper\"><p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=&#8221;&#8221; css_params=&#8221;&#8221;]<strong>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<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Stor-Age Property REIT Limited, South Africa\u2019s leading and largest self storage property fund,<\/strong> <strong>announced robust trading results for the four-month period ending 31 January 2025, with total occupancy and average rental rates up.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>&nbsp;<\/strong>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 400m<sup>2 <\/sup>compared 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.<\/p>\n<p>In the context of a subdued economic environment and relative to publicly traded operators, the UK portfolio\u2019s 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 400m<sup>2<\/sup>. The portfolio achieved an average rental rate increase of 4.1% year-on-year.<\/p>\n<p>The company\u2019s joint venture (JV) properties performed well in both markets, with occupancy since 30 September 2024 increasing by 4 100m<sup>2 <\/sup>and 2 700m<sup>2<\/sup> in South Africa and the UK respectively.<\/p>\n<p>Comments Stor-Age CEO Gavin Lucas, \u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>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 900m<sup>2<\/sup>. In the company\u2019s 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 500m<sup>2<\/sup>.<\/p>\n<p>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 900m<sup>2<\/sup> on full fit-out while the Acton property will comprise 5 800m<sup>2<\/sup>.<\/p>\n<p>Adds Lucas, \u201cThere 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The company has also continued to make significant progress with its third-party management offering, Management 1<sup>st<\/sup>, 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.<\/p>\n<p>Adds Lucas, \u201cWithin 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Looking ahead, the company remains focused on further expanding its portfolio while continuing to produce an attractive trading performance. Concludes Lucas, \u201cThe outlook for development activity remains positive and we are well positioned to pursue these opportunities with our JV partners as they arise.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The share closed on Friday at R14.60.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=&#8221;&#8221; css_params=&#8221;&#8221;]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\u2019s leading and largest self storage property fund, announced robust trading results for the four-month period ending 31 January 2025, with total occupancy and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7841,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[33,80,19,118,119,106],"class_list":["post-8092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-members-news","tag-listed-property","tag-portfolio-growth","tag-sareit","tag-self-storage-properties","tag-stor-age-reit","tag-trading-update"],"featured_image_src":{"landsacpe":["https:\/\/muddev.co.za\/sareit\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Gavin-Lucas_Stor-Age-CEO-crop-560x445.jpg",560,445,true],"list":["https:\/\/muddev.co.za\/sareit\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Gavin-Lucas_Stor-Age-CEO-crop-463x348.jpg",463,348,true],"medium":["https:\/\/muddev.co.za\/sareit\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Gavin-Lucas_Stor-Age-CEO-crop-290x300.jpg",290,300,true],"full":["https:\/\/muddev.co.za\/sareit\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Gavin-Lucas_Stor-Age-CEO-crop.jpg",560,579,false]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/muddev.co.za\/sareit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/muddev.co.za\/sareit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/muddev.co.za\/sareit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muddev.co.za\/sareit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muddev.co.za\/sareit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8092"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/muddev.co.za\/sareit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10377,"href":"https:\/\/muddev.co.za\/sareit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8092\/revisions\/10377"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muddev.co.za\/sareit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/muddev.co.za\/sareit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muddev.co.za\/sareit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muddev.co.za\/sareit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}