Blackstone locks up Fort Knox portfolio
Blackstone is paying $400 million for Fort Knox Self Storage, which includes 11 Melbourne properties.
The deal is with the Wilson family, which established the business in 1996.
Late Spotless founder Ian McMullin took a share two years later.
Blackstone said the partnership allows it to grow its Australian self-storage presence.
“We aim to help Fort Knox expand and scale operations to accommodate customers’ increasing demand for high quality storage space nationally,” head of Real Estate Australia, Chris Tynan, added.
In February, the New York listed group acquired a portfolio KeepSafe storage investments, in Perth.
The company also owns a majority stake in two Hong Kong assets of this type.
Blackstone joins Abacus, which has been investing heavily in the local sector since taking over the Storage King business last year (story continues below).
Last month that buyer outlaid $370m for 22 self storage investments – 12 of which were in Sydney.
In July, Abacus outlaid $160m for five more centres of this type.
ecommerce, urbanisation drivers: agents
JLL’s Tony Iuliano and Adrian Rowse brokered the Fort Knox sale.
“The transaction has shone a light on the growth of the sector, with the current strength of the self storage industry primarily fuelled by the significant growth of ecommerce adoption within Australia, which has seen rapid acceleration of 26 per cent, year on year, since the beginning of 2020” the brokers said.
“Other market drivers…include rising levels of urbanisation, increased residential housing trade and positive consumer sentiment,” according to the executives.
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