Safestore H2 2024 Earnings Report

Safestore EPS Results

• Actual EPS: GBX 92.40
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Safestore Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: N/A
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Safestore Announcement Details

• Quarter: H2 2024
• Date: 1/16/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, January 16, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 4:30AM ET

Safestore (LON:SAFE) is the UK's largest self storage group with 190 stores on 31 October 2023, comprising 133 wholly owned stores in the UK (including 73 in London and the South East with the remainder in key metropolitan areas such as Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds, Newcastle, and Bristol), 29 wholly owned stores in the Paris region, 11 stores in Spain, 11 stores in the Netherlands and 6 stores in Belgium. In addition, the Group operates 7 stores in Germany under a Joint Venture agreement with Carlyle. Safestore operates more self storage sites inside the M25 and in central Paris than any competitor providing more proximity to customers in the wealthiest and more densely populated UK and French markets. Safestore was founded in the UK in 1998. It acquired the French business "Une Pièce en Plus" ("UPP") in 2004 which was founded in 1998 by the current Safestore Group CEO Frederic Vecchioli. Safestore has been listed on the London Stock Exchange since 2007. It entered the FTSE 250 index in October 2015. The Group provides storage to around 90,000 personal and business customers. As of 31 October 2023, Safestore had a maximum lettable area ("MLA") of 8.090 million sq ft (excluding the expansion pipeline stores) of which 6.231 million sq ft was occupied. Safestore employs around 750 people in the UK, Paris, Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium.

Safestore H2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Group revenue saw a slight pullback and, amid inflation-driven cost increases and higher financing expenses, adjusted EPS declined 11.7% to 42.3p.
• Trading showed resilience with group revenue net of IPT up 1.1%, EPS still 48% above pre-COVID levels, and the board lifted the full-year dividend 1% to 30.4p per share.
• The self-funded development pipeline comprises 31 stores (1.6 million sq ft), with £150 million of remaining capex, expected to deliver an extra £35–40 million of EBITDA over five years.
• In line with its pan-European expansion strategy, SafeStore acquired 12 premium EasyBox stores in Italy for €45 million, projected to be earnings-neutral in 2026 and accretive thereafter with double-digit cash returns.
• Operational metrics remain strong: UK domestic occupancy rose 6.1% year-on-year (as of January 2025) and RevPAR is up 48% since 2016, underpinned by an undersupplied market and room for further rate growth.

Presentation

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

Okay, well, good morning, everyone, and thank you for attending the Safestore 2024 full-year results call. With me is the Group CFO, Simon Clinton. Moving on straight to the results. This year we had a slight pullback in group revenue and more costs, driven by the combination of inflation, new stores operating costs, and higher financial expenses, which are bringing our EPS back to 42.3p. I'm, of course, mindful of the current headwinds, and I fully take them into account when taking appropriate management and investment decisions. But fundamentally, that does not change the investment thesis. I always expected our growth journey to have some volatilities. We already had some in the past, and we always emerged stronger. We are a prudent and very tightly managed business, very entrepreneurial, in a reasonably conservative manner.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

If I put things back in context, Safestore is a business that, over the last 11 years, more than doubled its revenue and EBITDA, tripled its earnings, and quadrupled its dividends, all of which without asking any money to shareholders other than GBP 30 million 11 years ago. As you will see when we go through the results, it is a hugely profitable business. Store margins are at 69% across the group. REVPAF is among the highest in the industry, if not the highest. U.K. domestic demand is consistently growing. Loan-to-value is only at 25%. We have a very large self-funded pipeline and a track record of delivering double-digit cash on cash, and our more recent openings are on track. Moving on to highlights. Our trading has shown good resilience on the back of the extraordinary growth post-COVID, and is actually improving. Group revenue net of IPT is up 1.1%.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

Our EPS is, nonetheless, despite it being down this year, still up 48% since pre-COVID. We are therefore very happy to carry on with our progressive dividend policy and increase full-year dividend by 1% to GBP 0.304 per share. In the first two months of the financial year 2025, group revenue constant currency is up close to 3%, with a slight acceleration throughout the period, +2% in November, +3.6% in December. Since we started development in 2016, we added circa 4.6 million sq ft, including pipeline, which represents an 82% MLA growth, and that has been entirely self-funded. Since we expanded into Spain and Benelux, we have started to open new stores there, which now gives us some local minimum critical size. Although these stores represent only 9% of the group asset, they are doing well, and they will contribute to our growth going forward.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

Including future openings, we now have a total pipeline of 31 stores and 1.6 million sq ft, representing 19% of the existing portfolio. Jointly with Nuveen, we've also delivered the acquisition of the premium portfolio of EasyBox in Italy. I'm very pleased with the potential represented by this acquisition, and I'll come back to it. As of today, 90% of the portfolio, including pipeline, is in capital cities and major metropolitan areas, in areas with strong barriers to entry that will continue to support our pricing growth. The full breakdown is provided in the appendices of the presentation. Based on our business case, the pipeline will deliver GBP 35 million-GBP 40 million of additional EBITDA, although our track record of double-digit cash on cash return is actually better than that.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

The entire current pipeline requires an additional GBP 150 million for completion, which, on a constant valuation basis, would keep our LTV at around 30%. Moving on to REVPAF on the next slide. As you know, we consider REVPAF to be the most important indicator of operational performance, as it sums up all the components: occupancy, rates, and ancillary sales, in particular Customer Goods Protection, which is, in reality, a component of the rate and one way to structure pricing. Our goal remains to maximize REVPAF with whatever sustainable combination of these levers. Since 2016, our REVPAF has increased by 48% and is certainly among the highest in the industry, if not the highest again. You'll find in the appendices the REVPAF breakdown by region.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

If we delve into the following slide into the key components of the U.K. trading, I would describe the demand for self-storage from domestic customers as being as strong as ever. Our U.K. domestic occupancy is up 6.1% at year-end and up 6.4% on January 1st, 2025. That is actually above the occupancy CAGR over 10 years of 5.7% for domestic customers. This point may have been missed, but again, we increased domestic occupancy last year more than we did on average per year during the last 10 years. And in the first two months of 2025, we are aligned on that fundamental long-term growth figure. So, to be clear, even if there have been and there will be quarterly volatility like we had with stamp duty holidays, the fundamental growth of domestic demand is still there.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

You will have ups and downs, but fundamentally, we operate in an undersupplied market, the growth of which is underpinned by the slowly increasing awareness of the product, and at the current low level of supply, having more stores, including from competitors, is what increases storage usage overall in the country, which in turn increases awareness and the size of the market, and in the long run, helps us. In the early days post-COVID, our pricing model detected in the U.K. as the opportunity to push rates fast, and then later the need to wait until the market catches up, therefore holding the position until we can push it again. Given the 25% inflation since 2019, the storage affordability is back to 2019 level, which would provide room for further rate growth. In a way, the graph on the slide is a good synthetic summary of our trading since 2019.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

We grew initially revenue very, very fast, had a bit of slowdown, but still at historically high level. We then had the delayed impact of growing inflation on our cost base, which is now hitting us in a delayed manner, but the top line is at the moment turning back to growth. If I compare U.K. occupancy today to end of December 2021, which was our record occupancy year, our total occupancy is down 200,000 sq ft. That is entirely due to business occupancy, whereas domestic occupancy is up. Structurally, the business component of our occupancy has been growing less than the domestic one for a long time, with a 10-year CAGR of only 1.3% for business versus 5.7% for domestic customers. That is not something new. We have for a long time been proactively reducing the importance of business customers in the U.K. through the repartitioning of large units.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

We are agnostic as to whether small units are led by business or domestic customers, but we want to continue to reduce the number of large units. Ten years ago, business customers represented 50% of the U.K. let space. Today, it is 40%. Our goal is 30%, which is what we have in the other countries. We are hence accelerating our program to repurpose unit size in the U.K. towards typical domestic unit sizes. We currently still have 1 million sq ft of units above 250 sq ft, predominantly located in London, 36% of them, and in Southeast England, 24%, the rest being spread out in the other region. The target is to repurpose initially at least 500,000 sq ft. The rates we achieve for the units below 100 sq ft is 85% higher than that on larger units. We use a natural churn to execute this repartitioning.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

We have a process in place so that it is typically done within a month after a unit has been vacated. We have good domestic demand, and there are stores where we run out of space with smaller units. So we are very confident that space will be absorbed and will support our rate growth over the next few years. Overall, looking at the trading in November, December in our main markets, the U.K. revenue year-to-date like-for-like grew +0.9%. If you remember, U.K. revenue like-for-like in Q1 was -2%, in H1 -1.5%, in Q3 -1.4%, in Q4 -0.2%. It turned flat at 0% in November and +1.8% in December. In France, revenue year-to-date like-for-like in euros is +1% for the period, which was 1.3% in November, and a slight slowdown to 0.6% in December.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

In the expansion markets, revenue year-to-date in euros is +27%. A few comments on web activities on the next slide. You know we have a central digital platform that manages customer acquisition and revenue from the U.K. We launched our new website in the U.K. in December. All countries, including Italy, are going to be included within the next couple of months. Inquiries have a more positive momentum in all markets, which are all up on last year, which is encouraging. Our European digital platform has a proven track record to support our growth in all markets and also in the new markets and leverage our investments in customer acquisition and pricing systems. The majority of our contracts are e-contracts. We now have four satellite automated stores, and almost all stores have out-of-hours automated access controls.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

We also offer the possibility for customers to book entirely online from the initial inquiry to contract signature and payment. The technology is in place and will continue to deploy where appropriate. It is entirely possible for us to operate our stores in a fully automated way. The only question is whether that is the best way to extract maximum value from our storage assets. Our view and experience is that whilst in some locations that can work efficiently, in most locations, store teams have an important role to play, and they add significant value. I've been taking myself hundreds of calls from prospective customers, and we have recordings and transcripts of all our customer calls. There are many reasons why store teams achieve a higher REVPAF, but let me give you just three. The first one is that customers very often overestimate the size they need.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

Downsizing them allows us to sell more expensively and still be affordable. The team has to downsell the size, and by doing that, they upsell the rate. The second is that customers, by default, will underprotect their goods, and the team will remind them of the importance of an adequate coverage. It is not a coincidence if our ancillary sales are by far the highest in the industry. The third one is that although some customers need lower price to move in, that is not true of all of them. We move 60% of our customers through a price list, and the rest with various controlled discounts. A pure online model, particularly with a high absolute occupancy target, means providing discounts upfront to 100% rather than to just 40% of your move-ins.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

I could add the fourth one, which is that a lot of customers still like to engage with someone and to know that there is a team locally looking after their goods, and that large stores with no teams tend to have quite quickly very low standards of cleanliness and maintenance. We are very operationally focused. Our stores are overwhelmingly located in areas with barriers to entry, ranging from good to super strong, and in a fixed-cost business, the top-line variations have a disproportionate impact on bottom line, which is what allows us to achieve double-digit cash on cash on investments despite investing in premium locations. Our priority will remain to develop and operate stores with locations that support that in the long run. Having extended our geographies gives us more possibilities to find investments with the characteristics that we want.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

Our strategy will hence remain to develop across Europe, focusing on the main capital cities. We will also be using joint ventures in order to leverage further our management platform. As the business grows, we believe that our current group head office can manage a significantly greater number of stores with only marginal additions and that its cost per sq ft of MLA will go down. As shown in the next slide, we've built initially bridgeheads across a number of countries. We have then increased their size to a minimum critical operational size. We now have 35 stores in our expansion market. We have a pipeline of five stores that will soon bring that number to 40. Post year-ends, we also extended two stores in Paris and added five new stores in London, including one acquisition in Chelsea and one in Paris.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

Just to avoid any confusion, the pipeline as of year-end in October was 1.6 million sq ft. We opened 0.3 million sq ft in November, December, so that the remaining pipeline as of today is 1.3 million sq ft. This does not include Germany and Italy. In Germany, in joint venture with Carlyle, we have a pipeline of three additional stores, and as you know, we acquired 20 stores in Italy. There is a clear opportunity across all Europe, shown in the next slide, as self-storage is significantly underdeveloped, and it is a product that does work everywhere. The current density is still relatively low in the U.K. at 0.9 sq ft per inhabitant, more so in the Netherlands, Spain, Paris, Belgium, and Italy, where it is close to zero, and the opportunity is massive.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

So we are very pleased with the EasyBox acquisition described in the next slide that gives us a very strong position to create a presence with a strong platform while investing for now a reduced amount of equity. We bought 12 premium stores located in Milan, Turin, Florence, Genoa, and Rome, two of which are due to open in the next few months. They have very prominent locations, and they are invested at a high standard of quality. 11 are freehold, and one is long lease. The 10 open stores have strong trading track record. The self-storage supply there at 0.02 sq ft per inhabitant is equivalent to 2% of U.K. supply density. These stores will all be managed by Safestore. Our equity investment is EUR 45 million. The stores are within a tax-efficient real estate investment fund structure.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

We expect them to be diluted by 0.3% in 2025, earnings neutral in 2026, and accretive thereafter. As for all our investments, we then target double-digit cash on cash. This acquisition has been done in joint venture with Nuveen, in line with our strategy of leveraging cross-European management platform and de-risking development. The acquisition, which is of a minimum critical size, will provide for some stores 20 years of trading and marketing data points. The trading data will be fundamental to decide our potential additional developments over time. I believe there is a vast potential of growth in the Italian market. The product is not very well known there. Usage will, as everywhere else, increase as supply increases, but the current stores are trading well, and some have very high occupancies.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

The sociodemographic characteristics of density of population and income in most large towns of central and northern Italy are very favorable. There are more than 15 conurbations with population ranging from 500,000 to 3 million people, with purchasing power higher than Madrid, Barcelona, or the Randstad. Italy is the country in which development is not always easy and straightforward, which constitutes a strong barrier to entry, and having the possibility to start from a sizable platform to develop further is a significant benefit against new entrants. The following slides provide the detail of the store pipeline of 1.6 million sq ft, of which, as said, 0.3 million sq ft has already been opened in November, December.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

It is a total of 30 stores plus one extension, once again with top locations with dense populations and barriers to entry, 10 in London, eight in Paris, five in Barcelona and Madrid, two in the Randstad, one in Brussels, and the remaining five in regional cities. I'll go relatively fast on the next two slides, which break down our future MLA. So slide 11 shows how we have filled the additional space as we expanded over time. Our current pipeline leaves us with almost three million sq ft available before we reach 90% occupancy. That is a combination of the pipeline plus the space that is already available in our current portfolio, as like-for-like will, of course, remain a key component of our growth.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

Please note that the rate percentage growth shown in the graph since 2013 is diluted by the new geographies, where rates are materially lower than in the U.K. or Paris. They now represent 10% of the group occupancy up from 0% in 2013. Next slide. From a pipeline of 1.6 million sq ft, following the 0.3 million sq ft that have been delivered in the first two months, 1 million sq ft will be delivered in 2025 and 2026, and 0.3 million sq ft beyond. The next slide is very important to us as it shows how we track with our return on investment targets. These results are driven by our discipline in land acquisition as well as strict management of our construction cost. The left chart shows all the new store developments since 2016, excluding acquisitions, and how they have matured from a financial point of view.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

As you can see, they all track in the right direction and deliver the return we want, including the most recent openings. To answer a question which is frequently asked, this is how we track investment rather than tracking speed of occupancy. Occupancy comes in due course, but we focus on the optimal combination of rate and occupancy as well as ancillaries that maximize our returns. The chart on the right includes acquisition and development and shows by investment vintage what is our cash-on-cash position. Basically, that means that our investments up to October 2020 are all already above the target. The 2021 investments are close to it at 9.1, and the more recent stores are maturing.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

Of course, the stores opened in 2024 are headwinds on earnings, as you would expect, as new stores typically break even within a year and reach financial maturity four or five years after opening. I believe that this provides a very strong support to our expected EBITDA contribution from the pipeline of GBP 35 million-GBP 40 million in five years' time. The next slide is, as usual, an update on our leases. Same as usual in many ways, we constantly regear them well in advance so that the unexpired lease length is very stable at around 13 years. We sometimes buy one or two. We did not in the past 10 years, actually two this year, including our very prime Parisian store of Le Marais, which has probably the highest REVPAF of the group.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

The vast majority of our pipeline since 2016 has been freehold, so that today, in value, 85% of our assets are freehold. The U.K. leases represent 8.7% of asset value, and the French ones 5.3%. Next slide on ESG. We are ahead on our plan to reduce carbon emission. The self-storage intensity is well below other real estate asset classes, but Safestore is also just below the average self-storage intensity as calculated by EPRA. We plan to reduce the intensity further. Very importantly, we've been awarded again the Investors in People Platinum. We moved up from Gold four years ago. That is a strong recognition of our investment in our team, particularly our store team, which is very important in our business model to achieve higher REVPAF. Our customer satisfaction also remains very high, as measured by Trustpilot, Feefo, and Google reviews.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

I think finally the business is structurally very well placed to continue to benefit from the vast opportunities linked to the growth of the self-storage industry. I now let Simon go through the financials.

[Simon Clinton, CFO at Safestore]

Thank you, Frederic. Good morning, everyone. I'm going to start today with the key financial highlights on page 18. We're presenting results today, which show robust trading performance in challenging market conditions. Like-for-like revenue at GBP 217.9 million had a small decline of 0.5% on last year when including the negative impact of currency exchange rate movements. At constant exchange rates, revenue was flat year on year. Underlying EBITDA on a like-for-like basis was GBP 134.7 million, 5.4% down year-on-year, 4.9% down on constant currency basis, as we've been impacted by inflationary cost pressures. Revenue on a total group basis at GBP 223.4 million was in line with last year, increasing 0.2% at constant exchange rates.

[Simon Clinton, CFO at Safestore]

This includes the additional income from new stores, which was offset by the impact of Insurance Premium Tax in last year. I'm going to talk about that a bit more later. Similarly, on a total group basis, underlying EBITDA was GBP 135.4 million, including the additional earnings from new stores, down 4.8% on last year at actual exchange rates. As a result, when combined with higher interest costs, adjusted diluted EPRA EPS, our favorite measure of earnings, which excludes gains on property revaluation, was down 11.7% at 42.30 pence per share. The business is strongly cash-generating, and in the year, we delivered GBP 86.2 million of free cash flow from our operations, which was broadly in line with last year.

[Simon Clinton, CFO at Safestore]

We remain confident in our business with favorable medium-term dynamics and strong cash generation, and so we're announcing a recommended 1% increase in the final dividend to 20.40 pence per share, taking a four-year dividend to 30.40 pence. So to look at our underlying results in a little more detail, these figures exclude the gains on revaluation of investment property and show how the costs of leasehold property rents as a single line. As we have seen, revenue was broadly stable year on year at GBP 223.4 million for the year, down 0.3% at actual exchange rates. We have been impacted by general cost and wage inflationary increases, which we have seen across all of our markets. Underlying costs, excluding leasehold costs, were up 7.4% on the prior period, with both costs of sales and administrative costs increasing.

[Simon Clinton, CFO at Safestore]

Leasehold costs were up 4%, just over GBP 500,000 increase year-on-year, mostly driven by market rent reviews on properties in the U.K., but also with inflation-linked leases in France. Finance charges were GBP 5.5 million higher than last year as a result of additional borrowing to financing our development program, and as interest rates on our floating rate debt were higher on average over the year. As a result, adjusted EPRA earnings of GBP 92.7 million has seen an 11.8% decline year-on-year, so a quick run through the components of revenue growth, starting with the U.K. Overall recorded revenue fell 2.4% in the year, and this was made up of a 1.2% decline on a like-for-like basis, which we've seen gradually improve as we've gone through the year, as Frederic described. A 0.1% contribution from new stores, and there was a 1.3% reduction from the Insurance Premium Tax.

[Simon Clinton, CFO at Safestore]

So the GBP 2.2 million impact from Insurance Premium Tax in recorded revenue versus last year comes from a change in the nature of the product which we offer for Customer Goods Protection. In the 2023 financial year, this protection product attracted IPT, which was recorded in both revenue and in the cost of sales, but the new product which we've adopted in the 2024 financial year does not attract IPT. Therefore, this is a reduction year on year in both reported revenue and in cost of sales, and because it's not reflective of performance and has no economic impact, for comparative purposes, we've excluded it from like-for-like. We can see on this slide that the revenue on our markets outside of the U.K. has had a meaningful contribution to group revenue and for growth.

[Simon Clinton, CFO at Safestore]

In combination, our markets outside the U.K. grew 4% on a like-for-like basis, and we saw, in addition, EUR 2.8 million of additional revenue from new stores in our expansion markets. Paris delivered a solid 1.4% growth on a like-for-like basis, and I think it's now grown pretty much every year for 25 years in a row. The expansion markets of Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium showed strong growth from both like-for-like stores at 12.9% and from our new stores, which I mentioned, taking total revenue growth to 29%. This takes total revenue from these combined markets to EUR 20.6 million, and it demonstrates the significant growth potential that expansion markets now provide for the group.

[Simon Clinton, CFO at Safestore]

Looking at the build-up for our like-for-like revenue performance in terms of occupancy and the rate we achieve, overall across all of our markets, and excluding the effects of currency exchange rates, we achieve flat like-for-like revenue year on year. In the U.K., there was a decline of 1.2%, which was made up of a decrease in average occupancy of 1.8%, with a small decline in average rate of minus 0.6%, with overall revenue supported, as in all of our markets, by growing ancillary revenue. On a U.K. regional basis, we saw a consistent occupancy picture, with average rates decreasing 1% in London and the Southeast, as we lapped stronger growth in the prior year, and with rates flat for the rest of the U.K.

[Simon Clinton, CFO at Safestore]

In Paris, like-for-like revenue saw an increase of 1.4%, which was the result of flat occupancy on average year on year and an increase in storage rate of 0.7%. Across our expansion markets, we've seen strong like-for-like revenue growth year on year of 12.9%, and this has come from a combination of improving average occupancy, which rose 2.3%, and increasing average rate, which rose 7.7% year-on-year. Increases in average occupancy came in all three markets, with increases in average rate particularly coming through in Belgium and the Netherlands, where the teams continue to be focused on capturing the value available. Like other businesses, we haven't been immune to inflationary cost pressures in the year but have maintained our disciplined focus on keeping costs down. We've seen increases in both cost of sales and administrative costs.

[Simon Clinton, CFO at Safestore]

In cost of sales, an increase in store costs from new stores and developments was offset by the absence of the Insurance Premium Tax, which I've mentioned earlier. Excluding these on a like-for-like basis, cost of goods, sorry, cost of sales grew 8.6%. This was largely driven by high levels of bad debt provisions, including in Paris, where we've been impacted by changes in our recovery practices. Business rates, where we are impacted by both inflation-linked increases and in unwind of tapering discounts on higher ratable values in the U.K., and wage inflation for our store teams, where base salaries for some of the team are directly impacted by increases in the National Living Wage. The business rates and store salary levels are both directly impacted by external indices and largely represent the high levels of inflation seen over the last few years, now feeding through to these cost lines.

[Simon Clinton, CFO at Safestore]

We've had a similar story in administrative costs, where once again wage inflation is the largest factor, together with increases in team capabilities across the group. You can see that we continue to be a strongly cash-generating business. Free cash flow at GBP 86.2 million for the year was broadly flat year on year, with a GBP 3.3 million increase in operating cash flows offset by higher interest payments. We believe that the free cash flow generated from our operations, together with our debt facilities, continue to provide ample liquidity for both our development program and our progressive dividend policy. Our balance sheet further strengthened in the period with a 13.9% increase in the value of our open investment properties.

[Simon Clinton, CFO at Safestore]

We saw increases across all of our markets with a GBP 301.9 million, or 11% increase through the revaluation of properties, led by a 53 basis point reduction in weighted average exit yields on freeholds, with yield reductions seen in each country. This reflected the strong transactional market which we've seen across Europe in the last year. Net debt increased 11% as we used our committed facilities to finance our new store development program. At 25.1%, our loan-to-value ratio decreased 30 basis points year on year, reflecting the increase in property values. Following the exercise in the year of the GBP 100 million accordion on our revolving credit facility to take the committed amounts to GBP 500 million, we had GBP 144 million of debt capacity at the end of the year.

[Simon Clinton, CFO at Safestore]

This was boosted by a new EUR 70 million eight-year USPP, which we issued in December following the year-end, financing a portion of the drawn RCF and fixing rates for the loan term. We have no other debt maturing until the end of 2026, with a weighted average term to maturity of 4.2 years at the balance sheet date. Interest rates have been a little higher year on year through increases in floating rate interest, with our year-end effective rate increasing by 38 basis points to 3.96%. This, combined with our increased net debt, as described, reduced our interest cover ratio to 4.3x, but we're still in a comfortable position there. In the last two years to October, we opened 21 stores, and these are our non-like-for-like stores for the 2024 financial year.

[Simon Clinton, CFO at Safestore]

And in addition to that, we have a pipeline of another 31 new stores at the end of last year, and these stores are due to be opened in the next coming years. As Frederic described, we've got a rock-solid track record of achieving double-digit cash-on-cash returns from developments like these, but earnings have a shape to how they come through, and so it's important to lay out how these could impact us from a profitability perspective. There are two key elements to consider. The first of these is a short-term drag on earnings. This happens as the stores take a few years to fill up and generate significant revenue, while the underlying cost base, including interest on the development's financing, is in place from when the development starts or when the store opens.

[Simon Clinton, CFO at Safestore]

The result is that we've seen the total program have an approximate 2.2 pence per share impact on EPS this year, with a projected 3.1 pence per share impacted for 2025. Thereafter, the program's headwinds from the pipeline are expected to reduce with significant EBITDA growth contribution coming down the line. In fact, as the stores stabilize, which can take five to six years each, the developments become highly accretive to returns. And from this, we're projecting that we will see a new store development program achieving estimated additional GBP 35 million-GBP 40 million of EBITDA in five years' time, adding 8.1 pence or 17% EPS. This is an additional real engine for growth for us in the medium term, and it sits on top of the growth that we can deliver through driving performance from our like-for-like portfolio, creating significant further value for shareholders.

[Simon Clinton, CFO at Safestore]

Looking ahead to this new financial year, we're expecting to see continued pressure on operating costs from inflation, particularly in store staff costs, as a result of the National Living Wage increases and the National Insurance increases in the U.K., and as a result of inflation-linked increases and unwinding of tapering effects on ratable value increases in the U.K. business rates. Overall, we're currently projecting Like-for-Like operating costs increasing 7%-8% year on year. In addition, we're indicating that gross interest before development-related capitalization will be GBP 34 million-GBP 36 million for FY 2025, with an underlying P&L interest charge GBP 6 million-GBP 7 million higher year-on-year. And this comes from an increase in projected average borrowings as a result of our development pipeline, including our investment in Italy.

[Simon Clinton, CFO at Safestore]

Our pipeline of 31 new stores is estimated to cost GBP 281 million, and of this, GBP 150 million is estimated still to be spent. Of this outstanding amount, we're projecting that GBP 112 million will be spent in FY 2025, with GBP 38 million following that. So to wrap up, we have a robust operating performance in the year with steady like-for-like revenue for the total group, comprising resilient results with gradually improving like-for-like in the U.K., robust growth in Paris, and strong like-for-like and new growth from new stores in expansion markets. We continue to be impacted by inflation-linked increases to our operational cost base, both in the year gone by and in the next year.

[Simon Clinton, CFO at Safestore]

But we're well positioned for growth with a strong balance sheet, robust cash generation, and an exciting new joint venture in Italy and a development pipeline which is expected to add material earnings to growth in the medium term. And with that, we conclude the presentation, and we'll open for questions.

[Simon Clinton, CFO at Safestore]

Any questions from the floor?

[Aaron Guy, Real Estate Equity Analyst at Citi]

Thank you. Aaron Guy from Citi. Just going back to that sort of guidance slide that you had there and what visibility do you have over potential upside pressure on the cost inflation that you're anticipating or guiding for 2025? And the question sort of is, should we be thinking about this, given you've got 1%-2% earnings or like-for-like growth in the first two months of this year?

[Aaron Guy, Real Estate Equity Analyst at Citi]

Should we be thinking about these earnings as kind of the clearing event for the earnings decline with the cost pressures you've faced over the last year or two?

[Simon Clinton, CFO at Safestore]

Yeah, I think we think about the cost inflation coming through largely as part of known factors around inflation, so around National Living Wage increases, around the National Insurance increases we can see in the U.K. So these things are relatively tangible at this stage. And similarly, with the position on business rates in the U.K., we can look through those with a good degree of confidence. I think I would position them as our cost base, because it is impacted by these indices like National Living Wage and so on, is quite rearward-looking in terms of the way that the cost increases come through.

[Simon Clinton, CFO at Safestore]

So the large increases in cost of living and inflation generally that we've seen across the U.K. and across the rest of Europe have taken a bit of time to feed through. So we've captured them earlier in terms of revenue, captured them a bit slower in terms of cost, coming back to a more normalized margin towards the end of the period.

[Aaron Guy, Real Estate Equity Analyst at Citi]

Just a second one. On the property valuation, there was an acceleration in the second half, and you mentioned there were some strong transactions. Given you sort of completed a transaction pretty much just before sort of Christmas, can you just give us a little bit more color around how you're seeing investment markets in self-storage? Do you feel like the second half there was a greater push for more capital to push into the sector and buy more assets? Was it quite a competitive bidding process in Italy? And what are you seeing elsewhere?

[Simon Clinton, CFO at Safestore]

Yeah, I think I would characterize the market as being very healthy during the course of last year. There was a lot of interest in a number of assets and portfolios that came up, not least Lok'nStore, which transacted in the U.K. There was some pretty tight pricing generally seen across the board, which reflected sort of a general confidence in the sector, I think, amongst the investment market. And yeah, we haven't seen any signs of that slowing down, but of course, it's early days this year so far.

[Simon Clinton, CFO at Safestore]

Hi, good morning. [Anousska Kapur] from Morgan Stanley. Two questions, please. The first one, could you please provide a little bit more color on current trading, particularly in the U.K., whether that like-for-like revenue increase came mainly from rate increases or that was occupancy as well, a bit of both?

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

Well, there are some different moving parts depending if you talk about the domestic of the business. Clearly, there is a strong push from the domestic occupancy. I would say that at the moment, the year-on-year occupancy position on the business is not declining. It's stable where it is, but we don't see, when you look at inquiries at the moment, a big pickup in demand compared to where it was. So it's not deteriorating, but it's not progressing yet.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

I think that the segment of our demand, which is the most correlated with the general activity, when you look at what these business customers are, there are, I mean, a lot of them are people who are supporting the construction. I mean, you will have the local plumber, electrician, which has some working activity somewhere and needs storage near a construction site, for instance. You will have a lot of customers engaged in hospitality or supporting hospitality. And what we see is that the demand from the most fragile of them, which have reduced. If I dive further down into our customer occupancy, I see the segment which has reduced is almost entirely the lowest paying ones.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

Whereas if I look at my customers, which are, and it's a bit of a proxy to understand their size, if you try to differentiate the sole traders versus the more established limited companies or even a few PLCs, that occupancy has never declined, and they're the one which pays by far the highest rate. And when we look at the business occupancy, I mean, there is no acceleration of departure. There is no change in the churn rate. There is no change in their length of stay. What we see is that there is clearly less demand. So when you look at the rates, you have to, I mean, of course, this is something that the moving rates vary all the time, store by store, size by size. I would say that the average rate position is quite healthy and is around the rate is up year-on-year.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

But that could change at any time as our models constantly adapt our position to what we see in the market.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

Thank you. My other question is on the dividend. I see that you're guiding to more or less matching the EPS growth in the medium term, but given what's the outlook for EPS for the next couple of years, is there any risk that you cut the dividend or we see a dividend reduction in the next couple of years?

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

Well, I can certainly not anticipate on what the board might decide next year, but that is clearly not our thought and our expectation at this stage. We've got plenty of cover from a cash perspective and earnings perspective at this stage.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

Thank you.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

And the dividend is covered, yes, by earnings, not by any other means.

[Sam King, VP of Real Estate Equity Research at BNP Exane]

Morning, Sam King from BNP Exane. Just a couple of questions on the EasyBox acquisition in Italy, please. Picking up on your comments on the strong trading track record of the portfolio, are you able to share what the current occupancy is as of today? Presumably, it's quite low given typical break-even for new developments. It's about 50%. And then I suppose linked to that, what are you assuming in terms of occupancy ramp-up over the next two years to get to earnings accretion from that deal by FY 2027?

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

So similarly with Germany, whereas these investments are also privately held by our partners, so we don't disclose detailed trading data, but I don't think it would be correct to assume the occupancy is low because there are two stores which are due to open. So of course, their occupancy is still zero now.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

The last opening, which was in Florence about now probably a year ago or a bit more than a year ago, has had a very strong start and has well passed its break-even. I think the occupancy, I mean, some stores are in the 80s and there is a quite so the occupancy are relatively high, but can be pushed higher. The rates also are healthy.

[Sam King, VP of Real Estate Equity Research at BNP Exane]

Okay. I suppose linked to that, just in terms of the pipeline more generally, I noticed that the dilution or the expected earnings dilution in FY 2026 has got worse versus when you last reported it the half year. Is that just a function of the pipeline's got bigger, so you've got more near-term costs? Or is there anything else going on?

[Simon Clinton, CFO at Safestore]

No, it's just adding in new stores. So we've developed out some stores and we've added to the pipeline over that period of time. So that's all that is.

[Sam King, VP of Real Estate Equity Research at BNP Exane]

Thank you.

[Matt Saperia, Real Estate Analyst at Peel Hunt]

Morning, it's Matt Saperia from Peel Hunt. Frederic, I think you mentioned in your presentation remarks that affordability is back to 2019 levels. Can you just remind me how you measure affordability?

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

I mean, it was just comparing the relative to how the inflation went and how in the same period as we put the curve in that slide. And we know that National Living Wage and salaries generally have quite followed that inflation metrics. But it's essentially in relation to the general CPI.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

Hello, [Bernard] from Barclays. Can you give some color on the expansion markets, what led to the double-digit like-for-like? And I mean, it's pretty strong compared to the other markets.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

Well, it's a combination of many factors. The fact that some of the stores that we acquired, when we started to manage them, we meaningfully increased the volume of inquiries by bringing them into our platform at a much reduced cost. That was particularly strong in the case in Spain, but that was also true in Belgium. I think we have managed also the rates very proactively, and the rates that we've been able to charge as a result of our ways of operating stores have increased enormously in Belgium. Belgium, we still operate only the same six stores that we bought now three or four years ago, jointly with Carlyle at the time. And the rates, the REVPAF growth, and they were highly occupied already, but the REVPAF growth has been stellar there. In Spain, it's a combination of having also added a lot of stores over the years, which have ramped up nicely.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

And we bought only four very small stores. I mean, three of them were very small in the center of Barcelona. We've added close to, I think, 16 or 17 stores open in total now between Madrid and Barcelona. And the one which has been opened three years ago, two years ago, one year ago, have been ramping up very nicely. And so they all underpin that growth. And it's a similar story in the Netherlands. So I think that's what is behind that. And of course, this new activity in relation to the core base is large in proportion compared to what we purchased on day one.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

Thanks for taking the question.

[Max Nimmo, Director and Real Estate Equity Research Analyst at Deutsche Numis]

Hi, Max Nimmo at Deutsche Numis. Just on the bringing down the sort of business customers in the U.K., do you expect that will have from sort of down towards 30%, do you think that will have an impact on the cyclicality of the U.K. part of the business? And maybe just kind of related to that, a kind of comment. I think you said Paris revenues have been up for the last 20 years. Just a kind of comment between the mature markets in the U.K. and the mature markets in Paris, and a bit of a comparison there. What's the driving differences between them and why one is less cyclical than the other?

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

Well, I think that business component actually more recently has been what has been driving the cyclicality at the moment. It could be different in the future.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

I know it was different in the GFC in 2008, 2009, as the cyclicality was more driven by the domestic business. But I think the industry has changed a lot since. I mean, that was many, many years ago for the self-storage industry. I think it is quite different from in terms of awareness and usage. But of course, you can never exclude that at some point in the future, something like that comes back. But I think clearly now it's more, I mean, the depth of the demand where you have the greater number is domestic. I mean, there are many more people than there are businesses in any countries. And I think the business community is much more aware of the self-storage industry because, I mean, when these guys have storage needs, they've been looking for storage facilities, and I think they've noticed the self-storage industry.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

I think lots of private people don't really take notice about it. They may have seen something what's driving, but without paying too much attention to it and never thought about using it until the day they start to need it. And this is where you have clearly the huge potential growth of the market everywhere. And I think the more that demand increases, well, the more, of course, they will absorb our space. It's very hard to predict, of course, what would be the future volatility on that. In terms of comparing with Paris, I mean, Paris situation is quite unique in Europe in having big cities, which is essentially divided with two operators, it's Shurgard and us. I mean, there are a few other players, but they are relatively small even when we aggregate all of them.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

We have quite a unique position in the center of the city, in the wealthiest area. If you take the inner city of Paris itself, which is about 2 million people within the periphery, which is super hard now to develop with stores, and we have lots of stores there. The wealth of the people is probably, I mean, that would compare to the best part of London. To give you some figure, if I take the center of Madrid in terms of purchasing power, if I take Madrid, Barcelona, I will be just above 20,000 per people. If I take the Randstad, that would be at this level. If I go to the best Italian cities, I maybe I will be a bit higher, more like 24, 25. In Paris, it's 35. And so strong barriers to entry, a strong supply from us, a very dense city.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

The center of Paris is a denser city in the Western world after Manhattan and high purchasing power. I think that is what has underpinned the very strong growth over 20 years of our Paris business, and we have been able, because of course, the supply within the city of Paris itself is limited, and we would like to put many more stores, but of course, it is super difficult. We have been able also to bring a lot and to offer to lots of people from the center of Paris storage facilities outside where it was slightly easier to develop, and that is also one of the reasons why our rates outside Paris in the suburbs are still very high compared to what others may achieve because our marketing and selling machine in Paris, not only in the suburbs targets the local customer base.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

We have, of course, a good offer for them, but we are able to bring and to move people from the center of the city to the outskirts, and that lifts the rates.

[Max Nimmo, Director and Real Estate Equity Research Analyst at Deutsche Numis]

That's great. Thank you.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

Are there any number of questions here? Are there any questions on the line?

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

Yes, we have a question on the line. But beforehand, I would just like to remind everybody on Zoom that if you wish to ask a question, please use the Q&A button to ask a text question or use the raised hand function to ask your question verbally. Our question first comes from Gerardo Ibañez Herrero from Kempen. He asks, "Could you please provide some color on the operational performance differences between domestic and business that you have seen in the first two months across the U.K., and how do you see this evolving into 2025?

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

On the back of this, could you please provide some color on how much you expect to reduce business exposure in the U.K. during 2025? When do you anticipate reaching the 70/30 split?

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

So I think on the first question, I think we've probably in the meantime covered it. So I would be in the danger of repeating myself. But on the second part, which is unless, of course, there is one point of the question I'm missing. But on the second part, which is so when it's well, it's difficult to give a precise date. As I said, we want to achieve at least 500,000 sq ft of repurposing of units in the next few years. But I don't think it also depends on how the demand evolved because we do that as always in a prudent manner.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

We look at absorptions and the demand on the smaller sizes. And of course, I think it's worthwhile to remember that should the economy slightly turn around and the business demand pick up, then I think we are the sort of business with our national presence that would benefit from it very quickly. And that would be on top of our deep fundamental domestic demand, be a very strong accelerator of our revenue growth.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

Thank you. That was our only question via Zoom. So I will hand it back to you. Okay.

[Frederic Vecchioli, CEO at Safestore]

Well, then thank you very much for your attention. And then that concludes our presentation. Thank you.

[Simon Clinton, CFO at Safestore]

Thank you.

Participants

Executives

• Simon Clinton, CFO
• Frederic Vecchioli, CEO

Analysts

• Max Nimmo, Director and Real Estate Equity Research Analyst at Deutsche Numis
• Matt Saperia, Real Estate Analyst at Peel Hunt
• Aaron Guy, Real Estate Equity Analyst at Citi
• Company Representative
• Analyst at Morgan Stanley
• Sam King, VP of Real Estate Equity Research at BNP Exane
• Analyst at Barclays