Nuveen Real Estate’s pan-European diversified value-add strategy has partnered with UK self-storage operator Storage King to acquire four properties.

The 240,000sqft portfolio, located across the southeast of England including Crawley, Edenbridge, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells, has been acquired from Easistore for an undisclosed amount.

Nuveen said Storage King holds a minority stake in the partnership, contributing 10% of the equity capital. Storage King forms part of Stor-Age, a self-storage property fund that owns a portfolio of 86 properties across the UK and South Africa.

The transaction is the first acquisition for Nuveen’s pan-European diversified value-add strategy which raised an initial €180m in February from investors including Danish pension fund Sampension.

David Pearce, fund manager in charge of real estate in Europe at Nuveen, said: “Over the last few months we have worked closely with our joint-venture partner Stor-Age to enter the UK self-storage market and this acquisition provides an excellent seed portfolio. Well-located assets near to densely populated residential areas, have demonstrated a consistent level of rental growth in recent years and we have identified an opportunity to be an early mover in this sector, which offers substantial scalability potential in the UK.

“Our focus is now on undertaking our business plan including rebranding the properties, leasing of the remaining vacant space, the potential for development and extension at some of the assets and, if the right opportunities arise, further growing our self-storage portfolio.”

In December 2021, Nuveen acquired 24Storage and said it would merge it with Green Storage, which it acquired a month earlier. 

Jasper Gilbey, head of housing and alternatives, real estate, Europe at Nuveen said: “Self-storage is one of our key conviction plays in Europe given the sectors proven resilience, strong demographic tailwinds and low provision rates as a basis for growth.

“We are delighted to build on the success of our Green Storage platform in Sweden with the acquisition of the Easistore platform in the UK for our European Value-Add strategy.”

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