{"id":1088,"date":"2022-05-06T11:05:30","date_gmt":"2022-05-06T11:05:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/listselfstorage.com\/uk\/industry-insights\/?p=1088"},"modified":"2022-05-06T11:05:30","modified_gmt":"2022-05-06T11:05:30","slug":"storage-specialist-loknstore-racks-up-another-half-of-strong-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/listselfstorage.com\/uk\/industry-insights\/storage-specialist-loknstore-racks-up-another-half-of-strong-growth\/","title":{"rendered":"Storage Specialist Lok\u2019nStore Racks Up Another Half Of Strong Growth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- VideographyWP Plugin Message: Automatic video embedding prevented by plugin options. --><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Self-storage firm Lok\u2019nStore Group (LOK:AIM) posted a sharp rise in revenues and earnings for the first half as it continues to roll out sites in a desperately under-served market.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">The company also released significant value through the sale-and-manage-back of four mature stores, allowing it to reduce debt and increase its dividend.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Growth Machine:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Lok\u2019nStore has a strong record of growing both earnings and net asset value, a trend that continued in the six months to January.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Group revenues rose 31.1% to \u00a313.4 million driven by an increase in sites and an impressive 18.5% rise in price per square foot of occupied space.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">NAV or net asset value per share jumped 48.4% to 843p thanks to the increase in revenues and rental space.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">The firm currently has 37 sites but it plans to add 12 more sites over the coming years to add more than a third in new space thanks to its fully-funded store pipeline.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Actively Managed:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">When a new site is opened and space is rented, rental income starts to climb as does the net asset value of the store.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Once a store reaches maturity, both income and net asset value increase at a slower rate.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Therefore, the firm takes an active approach to managing its estate, selling some of its more mature sites, and taking a management fee to operate the store while using the capital raised to invest in new opportunities.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">In the six months to January, the company completed the sale-and-manage-back of four mature stores, raising \u00a337.2 million which represented a 23% premium to their valuation in July last year.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Given the under-penetration of self-storage in the UK compared with markets such as the US, Lok\u2019nStore management is confident there is a long runway of growth still ahead of them.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Despite its growth plans, the firm is conservatively managed with a low level of net debt and has increased its dividend for the eleventh year running.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sharesmagazine.co.uk\/news\/shares\/storage-specialist-loknstore-racks-up-another-half-of-strong-growth\"><strong>Source<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Self-storage firm Lok\u2019nStore Group (LOK:AIM) posted a sharp rise in revenues and earnings for the first half as it continues to roll out sites in a desperately under-served market. The company also released significant value through the sale-and-manage-back of four mature stores, allowing it to reduce debt and increase its dividend. Growth Machine: Lok\u2019nStore has a strong record of growing both earnings and net asset value, a trend that continued in the six months to January. Group revenues rose 31.1% to \u00a313.4 million driven by an increase in sites and&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":1089,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/listselfstorage.com\/uk\/industry-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1088"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/listselfstorage.com\/uk\/industry-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/listselfstorage.com\/uk\/industry-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/listselfstorage.com\/uk\/industry-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/listselfstorage.com\/uk\/industry-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1088"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/listselfstorage.com\/uk\/industry-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1090,"href":"https:\/\/listselfstorage.com\/uk\/industry-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1088\/revisions\/1090"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/listselfstorage.com\/uk\/industry-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/listselfstorage.com\/uk\/industry-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/listselfstorage.com\/uk\/industry-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/listselfstorage.com\/uk\/industry-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}