Blackstone has bought Australian storage company Fort Knox Self Storage for an undisclosed price.

Blackstone described the acquisition of Fort Knox, owner of 11 self-storage assets in Melbourne, as “one of the largest self-storage transactions in Australia”.

Chris Tynan, Blackstone’s head of real estate Australia, said: “We are pleased to begin our partnership with Fort Knox and grow our self-storage footprint in Australia.

“Backed by Blackstone’s scale and expertise, we aim to help Fort Knox expand and scale operations to accommodate customers’ increasing demand for high-quality storage space nationally.”

Fort Knox is Blackstone’s second self-storage investment in Australia, following the acquisition of the KeepSafe portfolio in Perth, earlier this year.

According to the consultancy firm, CBRE, investor demand for self-storage in Australia has been robust through the pandemic, with market leaders National Storage REIT and Abacus purchasing 19 and 11 self-storage facilities, respectively, in the 2020 financial year.

Despite the impact of COVID-19, well over A$300m (€193m) of self-storage facilities transacted last year.

According to CBRE, effective yields of between 5.5-5.6% eclipsed those of other property classes, on the back of rising revenues.

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