Moving and Storage Business News

The News Review:

- Energised: Giles Clarke
- Big Yellow posts 29% jump in pre-tax profit on boom in self-storage
- Monday Closing Market: FTSE ends day lower after soaring to new high
- Revisiting U-Store-It
- Bloomberg.com: UK & Ireland

Energised: Giles Clarke
Telegraph.co.uk – May 21, 2007
He began his career with CSFB as an investment banker and co-founded wine warehouse chain Majestic Wine in 1981 and pet store chain Pet City in 1990. Mr Clarke was also chairman of self-storage company Safestore. The chairman of Somerset County Cricket Club and commercial chairman at the England and Wales Cricket Board, he talks about animal experiences and Aim’s future. Q Do you think the growth in Aim is sustainable? A I see no reason why it should slow, as long as there are no fundamental changes to the tax regime or the sensible regulatory structure in the UK. Q Where do you see oil and gas prices headed? A It is a game of supply and demand, so long-term, prices will go up given most of the easy and cheap places to explore have been exploited. Q What are the drivers ofself-storage? A That the average person moves house every four years and more people are living alone in smaller accommodation with less space and more leisure equipment.

Big Yellow posts 29% jump in pre-tax profit on boom in self-storage
CityWire.co.uk – May 21, 2007
âNinety percent of the business is freehold, weâre improving our operating margins, and trading in the (most recent) quarter was our second-best ever,â Gibson said. Big Yellow is not in the market for acquisitions, according to Gibson, but previously it expressed interest in the UK self-storage units of Shurgard, a company with 150 self-storage facilities across Europe. Shurgard was acquired in August by Public Storage, a publicly traded US storage company, and has 19 self-storage facilities within the M25 and in the Thames Valley, according to its Web site. Big Yellow first traded its shares on AIM in May 2000, and moved to the main exchange in 2002, where itâs listed on the FTSE 250. Today, most of Big Yellowâs 43 self-storage facilities are located in and around London and southern England. Gibson said the company intends to continue to focus on this region because it has the most transient population, the greatest concentration of people living in housing with inadequate storage capacity, such as recently-built flats, and the countryâs greatest awareness of self-storage. Of the nine sites Big Yellow acquired during the financial year just ended, five were in London and four in Sheffield, Nottingham, Poole and High Wycombe.

Monday Closing Market: FTSE ends day lower after soaring to new high
CityWire.co.uk – May 21, 2007
The stock climbed more than 5% or 30p a share to close at 621p. The company reported a 29% increase in full-year pre-tax profit and said trading conditions were expected to remain âgoodâ at least into the summer. Summer is for self-storage companies what Christmas is for Hamleys. Also on the FTSE 250 gainer board, shares of Greggs, the Newcastle-upon-Tyne-based chain of sandwich and pastry shops, soared to a new 52-week high. 15, up more than 4%, before closing at 53. 59, a 167p gain, or just over 3%.

Revisiting U-Store-It
Motley Fool – May 21, 2007
I’ve considered the company an interesting turnaround opportunity for more than a year, but at prices between $20 and $22, I felt that recovery was largely priced in. With prices back below $18, however, it’s time for another look. Public Storage (NYSE:…
12 per share for the year, the company should be able to cover its dividend in its third and fourth quarters, or be within a penny in each. Unfortunately for U-Store-It, its sluggish turnaround comes as all of its public peers are also seeing their shares slide. So far this year, all four of the large publicly traded storage trusts have fallen from their February highs, leaving U-Store-It caught in a potential industry slowdown. However, any slowdown probably won’t be severe; few businesses have historically been as dependable as storage. Even in hard times, when businesses contract in size, they often end up paying to store documents previously housed in more expensive office space. U-Store-It’s turnaround has hit a few bumps. But with its share price 25% beneath its high in February, and its current 6.

Bloomberg.com: UK & Ireland
Bloomberg – May 21, 2007
Companies: Big Yellow Group Plc (BYG LN) gained 20 pence, or 3. Britain's third-largest self-storageoperator said profit more than doubled in fiscal 2007 afterthe company booked a tax gain linked to its conversion to areal estate investment trust. Britvic Plc (BVIC LN) decreased 6.