Self-storage giant Shurgard to buy UK’s Lok’nStore for £378m

The deal will add 43 sites in England and Wales to Shurgard’s portfolio, the business said.

Lok’nStore has a large portfolio in South East England (Katharina Brandt/Alamy)

One of Europe’s biggest self-storage companies has offered £378 million to shareholders of London-listed Lok’nStore to buy it off the stock exchange.

A deal which the two companies’ boards announced on Thursday would give Shurgard access to Lok’nStore’s 43 self-storage shops which are scattered across England and Wales.

It will, for the first time, see Shurgard enter the south-east of England where Lok’nStore has 32 sites and is developing another five. Shurgard also said it would get its hands on five Manchester sites, three of which are being developed at the moment.

Lok'nStore’s board believes the offer represents significant value for Lok'nStore’s shareholders, recognising the quality of Lok'nStore's real estate portfolio and operational strength.

Andrew Jacobs, Lok'nStore chair

Lok’nStore was founded in 1995 and has since expanded across England and Wales. A lot of its sites are very new, with 43% of the portfolio being built since January 2022.

It has 171,000 square metres of floor space, of which around 50,000 is still under development.

Shurgard is much larger. It has 276 stores, 1.4 million square metres of space and services 190,000 customers every year in seven countries.

The deal will see Shurgard pay £11.10 for every Lok’nStore share it buys, which is 15.9% higher than where shares were trading on Wednesday and slightly higher than their all-time high.

Lok’nStore chair Andrew Jacobs said: “Lok’nStore’s board believes the offer represents significant value for Lok’nStore’s shareholders, recognising the quality of Lok’nStore’s real estate portfolio and operational strength.

“Over the years Lok’nStore has built a unique portfolio of purpose-built self-storage assets.

“We believe that integrating Lok’nStore’s assets and operations into Shurgard is highly complementary considering Lok’nStore’s asset locations and positioning in its markets.”

Shurgard chief executive Marc Oursin said: “Following several successful acquisitions over the past year, I am excited to disclose this new acquisition in the UK, which doubles our presence in the country, and accelerates our growth and expansion strategy.”