Stor-Age, or Stor-Age Property REIT Limited, is a South African public company based in Cape Town. The company is a real estate investment trust that owns, acquires, develops and manages self-storage assets in metropolitan areas across South Africa and the United Kingdom. Stor-Age is the largest self-storage property fund in South Africa and has been listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange since 2015. The company currently has 86 self-storage properties located across South Africa and the UK.
History
Stor-Age was founded in 2004 to fill a vacuum in self-storage facilities in the greater metropolitan areas of South Africa. Gavin Lucas, the current CEO of Stor-Age, who was certified as a CA at the University of Cape Town, began working with his father, Les Lucas, his brother, Stephen Lucas, and fellow accountant, Steven Horton, to build a real estate investment trust. The four set up a "hotel pool rental scheme", raising R10 million by selling 200 units valued at R50,000 each. In 2007, they conducted extensive market research and secured a site in Edgemead, Cape Town. By 2013 they had 33 properties, 17 trading stores, eight greenfield sites and eight acquisitions. By 2015, Stor-Age controlled 40 properties with a total value of R2 billion.
On 16 November 2015, Stor-Age became South Africa's first self-storage property fund to be listed on the JSE's main board. Between September 2015 and September 2017, the company's market capitalisation tripled to reach approximately R3.5 billion, its annual revenue increased by 43% to R124 million and its annual operating profits increased by 50% to R84.5 million. However, as Business Day noted, South Africa's macroeconomic conditions are at least partially responsible for these rapid gains as self-storage conditions usually thrive in poor economic conditions since many people have to downsize or keep goods in storage before selling them.
In 2018, Stor-Age owned 50 properties in South Africa and the UK with a total value of R3.9 billion (R2.5bn in South Africa and R1.4bn in the UK). In early 2018, Stor-Age also performed unusually well amongst real-estate stocks on the JSE having 4% growth in the first few months of 2018, while the overall returns from real-estate sector declined by 18.56%.
In March 2019, the Stor-Age portfolio experienced a 63% growth in rental income, declaring a total dividend of 107 cents per share despite unstable economic conditions in South Africa as well as in the UK due to Brexit. During the year, the group also invested R850 million in new developments in South Africa as part of their new growth and investment strategy.
In September 2019, Stor-Age launched ‘Management 1st’ in the UK, a third-party management solution offered to independent operators, developers and private equity owners. This also included the development of the full-service digital marketing agency, Digital First. As a sub-component of their third-party management platform, the agency provided the group with an alternative revenue stream by generating enquiries and growing an online presence for independent self-storage operators.
In March 2020, Stor-Age entered into a joint venture with UK real estate fund manager, Moorfield Group, to build a self-storage portfolio worth R1.1 billion (£50 million) and develop self-storage assets in London and South East England. During the year, the group also concluded the acquisition of the Craighall property in Johannesburg, South Africa and the five-property Flexi Store portfolio in the UK, growing the portfolio to 71 properties.
Following the economic instability brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the property fund experienced an increase in demand as a result of homeowners downscaling, the adoption of remote working, and a rise in e-commerce businesses. Between 31 March 2020 and 31 March 2021, the group had a growth in organic rental income of 8.6% and 6.3% in South Africa and the UK respectively, ending the financial year with 74 properties and a total property value of R7.6 billion. This rise in demand also increased Stor-Age’s interim dividend by 8.85% to 56.60 cents per share in the first six months after the release of their annual financial results in March.
In September 2021, Stor-Age entered into a joint venture with Nedbank Corporate and Investment Bank to develop two properties in Morningside and Bryanston in South Africa's Gauteng province, at an aggregated cost of approximately R200 million. The group completed a further 11 acquisitions (two properties in South Africa and nine in the UK) from 31 March 2021 to 31 March 2022, increasing their portfolio to 85 properties and their total property value to R10.2 billion.