Safestore Holdings plc
("Safestore", "the Company" or "the Group")
Interim results for the 6 months ended 30 April 2025
Continued improvement in UK trading and strong growth in Expansion Markets Strong foundations for further shareholder value creation
Frederic Vecchioli, Safestore's Chief Executive Officer, commented:
"Our teams have worked hard to drive a robust first half performance while investing in the future growth pipeline. UK revenue growth continues to be led by domestic customer demand, with improvements in both occupancy and rate in the half. Trading performance in Paris has remained steady and our Expansion Markets in Europe continue to grow strongly. These trends have continued into the early weeks of the second half, and we are cautiously optimistic about the trading outlook.
Safestore in the UK is facing well documented inflationary cost headwinds, but we have identified cost savings which will help mitigate some of the impact of these in the full year and into next year. Our LFL stores remain highly cash generative and it is pleasing to the see the continued top-line growth from our portfolio. This gives us confidence as we continue to invest in our new store pipeline. The investment is, as expected, dampening profit growth in the short term as we bear the extra costs of immature stores and interest on the additional borrowings funding our pipeline. Our development programme represents 19% of our FY 2024 closing MLA and is expected to be highly accretive to the Group on stabilisation. Together with new stores opened in the last 18 months, this pipeline has the potential to deliver an incremental £35-£40 million of annual EBITDA.
Finally, I would like to thank all of our colleagues across our stores and head office whose commitment, hard work and customer-centric approach have been instrumental in driving our progress.”
Highlights
Resilient Financial performance
- Group revenue at constant exchange rates (CER) +4.0%; Group like-for-like (LFL) revenue of £111.5 million +2.8% driven by:
- Consistent like-for-like operational performance driven by continued rate growth
- +1.6% LFL in UK, +0.8% LFL in Paris and +17.0% LFL in Expansion Markets13
- Performance in UK improved month-on-month during H1 2025
- Group underlying EBITDA of £66.1 million, -1.0% at CER
- LFL store EBITDA increased £1.1 million to £75.4 million reflecting revenue growth partially offset by inflationary increases in store staff costs and UK business rates
- Non-LFL store EBITDA fell £0.5 million to (£0.2) million due to expected profile of revenue and costs on newly opened stores
- Administrative costs increased 25% or £1.9 million due to normalisation of head office staff incentives and write-off of preliminary costs for discontinued development projects
- Interest expense up £3.3 million YoY to £13.0 million due to increased borrowings to finance continued expansion of asset base less savings from active debt management
- Group underlying Profit before tax (“PBT”) and EPRA EPS declined 11.0% to £43.6 million and 10.4% to 19.0 pence
- Balance sheet remains strong
- Strong operating cash flows; £36.1 million H1 2025 (H1 2024: £41.0 million) of free cash flow before capex on new store development of £58.0 million and the EasyBox JV investment of £36.8 million
- Net debt £1,010.5 million (H1 2024: £862.7 million); increased proportion of Euro denominated debt, leading to closing cost of debt falling from 4.0% to 3.6%
- Group loan-to-value ratio (“LTV”14) at 27.4% (H1 2024: 25.7%) and interest cover ratio (“ICR”15) at 3.9x (H1 2024: 5.0x)
Good Strategic and Operational and Progress
- Encouraging growth in Group LFL REVPAF, average rate and occupancy in the half. UK revenue growth led by domestic consumer demand.
- Growth in maximum lettable area (MLA) +11.1% YoY to 9.1m sq ft. Opened 10 new stores and 1 extension in H1 2025 (adding 531,000 sq ft since FY 2024)
- Entered into a JV with Nuveen to acquire the EasyBox self-storage in Italy. EasyBox owns 11 stores with 1 in development, a total of 780,000 sq ft. This follows the Group strategy of entering high-potential markets with low levels of supply alongside partners. Safestore will operate the stores, leveraging our capabilities and existing platform.
Outlook and Guidance
- The Board remains comfortable with FY 2025 expectations, with underlying LFL costs and interest charge to be at lower end of previous guidance;
- Balance sheet remains strong
- Underlying LFL operating costs +7-8% on FY 2024
- Interest charge £5-£6 million higher
- Q3 early trading trends consistent with H1 performance
- Development pipeline and recently opened (non-LFL) stores on track to deliver incremental EBITDA of £35-£40 million on stabilisation
- H2 2025: 4 new stores opening, adding 201,300 sq ft
- FY 2026 and beyond: 16 new stores, expected to add 877,600 sq ft
For further information, please contact:
Safestore Holdings PLC
Frederic Vecchioli, Chief Executive Officer via Instinctif Partners
Simon Cliinton, Chief Financial Officer
www.safestore.com
Instinctif Partners
Galyna Kulachek/Tim Pearson 0207 457 2020
Ends
Notes
We prepare our financial statements using IFRS. However, we also use a number of adjusted measures in assessing and managing the performance of the business. These measures are not defined under IFRS and they may not be directly comparable with other companies’ adjusted measures and are not intended to be a substitute for, or superior to, any IFRS measures of performance. These include like-for-like figures, to aid in the comparability of the underlying business as they exclude the impact on results of purchased, sold, opened or closed stores; and constant exchange rate (“CER”) figures are provided in order to present results on a more comparable basis, removing FX movements. These metrics have been disclosed because management review and monitor performance of the business on this basis. We have also included a number of measures defined by EPRA, which are designed to enhance transparency and comparability across the European Real Estate sector; see notes 9 and 11 below and ‘Non-GAAP financial information’ in the notes to the financial statements.
1 – Where reported amounts are presented either to the nearest £0.1 million or to the nearest 10,000 sq ft, the effect of rounding may impact the reported percentage change.
2 – CER is Constant Exchange Rate (Euro denominated results for the current period have been retranslated at the exchange rate effective for the comparative period. Euro denominated results for the comparative period are translated at the exchange rates effective in that period. This is performed in order to present the reported results for the current period on a more comparable basis).
3 – Underlying EBITDA is defined as Operating Profit before exceptional items, share-based payments, corporate transaction costs, change in fair value of derivatives, gain/loss on investment properties, variable lease payments, depreciation and the share of associate’s depreciation, interest and tax. Underlying EBITDA therefore excludes all leasehold rent charges. Underlying profit before tax is defined as underlying EBITDA less leasehold rent, depreciation charged on property, plant and equipment and net finance charges relating to bank loans and cash.
4 – Occupancy excludes offices but includes bulk tenancy.
5 – CLA is Current Lettable Area excludes space not yet fitted out and space which is operationally unavailable from MLA. Measured in square feet (“sq ft”).
6 – MLA is Maximum Lettable Area. Measured in square feet (“sq ft”).
7 – Average Storage Rate is calculated as the revenue generated from self-storage divided by the average square footage occupied during the period in question.
8 – Revenue per Available Square Foot (“REVPAF”) is an alternate performance measure used by the business and is considered by management as the best KPI of economic performance of a mature self-storage asset as it is the net outcome of the occupancy/rate mix plus ancillary sales. It is calculated by dividing revenue for the period by weighted average available square feet for the same period.
9 – Adjusted Diluted EPRA EPS is based on the European Public Real Estate Association's definition of Earnings and is defined as profit or loss for the period after tax but excluding corporate transaction costs, change in fair value of derivatives, gain/loss on investment properties and the associated tax impacts. The Company then makes further adjustments for the impact of exceptional items, IFRS 2 share-based payment charges, exceptional tax items, and deferred tax charges. This adjusted earnings is divided by the diluted number of shares. The IFRS 2 cost is excluded as it is written back to distributable reserves and is a non-cash item (with the exception of the associated National Insurance element). Therefore, neither the Company’s ability to distribute nor pay dividends are impacted (with the exception of the associated National Insurance element). The financial statements will disclose earnings on a statutory, EPRA and Adjusted Diluted EPRA basis and will provide a full reconciliation of the differences in the financial year in which any LTIP awards may vest.
10 – Free cash flow is defined as cash flow before investing and financing activities but after leasehold rent payments. 11 – EPRA’s Best Practices Recommendations guidelines for Net Asset Value (“NAV”) metrics are EPRA Net Tangible Assets (“NTA”), EPRA Net Reinstatement Value (“NRV”) and EPRA Net Disposal Value (“NDV”). EPRA NTA is considered to be the most relevant measure for the Group’s business which provides sustainable long term progressive returns and is now the primary measure of net assets. The basis of calculation, including a reconciliation to reported net assets, is set out in note 15.
12 – Like‐for‐like (“LFL”) information includes only those stores which have been open throughout both the current and prior financial years, with adjustments made to remove the impact of new and closed stores, as well as corporate transactions.
13 – Expansion Markets comprise Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium plus income earned in relation to the associate in Germany (previously shown in the UK segment) and the joint venture in Italy. Results for the UK segment for H1 2024 have been re-presented with the inclusion of transactions between the Group and the German associate being included in Expansion Markets. The impact is to lower Revenue by £0.3 million, Profit before tax by £0.3 million and Total assets by £0.3 million within the UK segment and increase it by the same amounts in the Expansion Markets segment. 14 – LTV ratio is Loan-to-Value ratio, which is defined as net debt (excluding lease liabilities) as a proportion of the valuation of investment properties and investment properties under construction (excluding lease liabilities).
15 – ICR is interest cover ratio and is calculated as the ratio of underlying EBITDA after leasehold rent to underlying finance charges.
Reconciliations between underlying metrics and statutory metrics can be found in the financial review and financial statements sections of this announcement.
