The Armadillo self storage group has acquired an established self storage centre in Stockton on Tees, England. This acquisition strongly compliments the existing Armadillo centre in Stockton which is currently over 80% occupied, with the newly acquired centre providing an additional 20,000 sq.ft. of self storage capacity, occupied to approximately 70%. The acquisition has been completed by the Universal Self Storage Unit Trust No.1’s (USS1) UK Armadillo holding company, using existing cash and bank debt facilities.

This latest acquisition brings to 20 the total number of self storage centres jointly owned by USS1 and Universal Self Storage Trust No.2 (USS2) investment trusts, in conjunction with our UK partner Big Yellow Group. This is a doubling in the number of Armadillo centres since the investment strategy commenced in April 2014, with the initial acquisition of the 10 centre Armadillo portfolio.

On 21 November, our partner in the Armadillo joint venture, Big Yellow Group (BYG), released its results for the 6 months ending 30 September 2017.

Key highlights for the Armadillo portfolio include:

•  Occupancy at 30/09/17 was 78.3%, having peaked at over 80% during the 2017 summer trading season; and

•  Average net rental rates over the 6 months were up by 1.2% on the September 2016 half, as Armadillo pursued occupancy growth; and

•  The assessed value of the Armadillo centres now exceeds £80m, as directors consider the value of the portfolio has increased by £4.5m since 31 March 2017.

Click here to see the full presentation. 

The third of the Australia Prime Storage Fund's foundation projects, National Storage Kelvin Grove, opened on 9 November 2017. This state-of-the-art self storage centre features 5,500 sqm of self storage units over five levels.