Global investment firm Carlyle has sold a portfolio of self-storage assets in the Netherlands and Belgium to Safestore, representing the 80% shareholding in their Joint Venture, which was formed in 2019 to access Benelux’s self-storage market. The Joint Venture was valued at an enterprise value of €146 mln.
The portfolio consists of 15 properties in Benelux totalling 55,000 m2 of maximum leasable area, focused in the Amsterdam and Brussels urban areas. The Joint Venture assembled the portfolio through the acquisitions of two Dutch self-storage operators (M3 Self-storage, Opslag XL) and one Belgian self-storage operator (Lokabox), as well as one development in the Netherlands.
The Joint Venture between Carlyle Europe Realty (CER), Carlyle’s pan-European real estate platform, and Safestore was established in 2019 to acquire and develop assets in the Netherlands and Belgium to access the Benelux region’s attractive self-storage market. The portfolio has benefitted from strong fundamentals within the European self-storage space, driven by secular demographic trends involving increasing urban density and growing residential prices, combined with a significant undersupply in the sector.
Marc-Antoine Bouyer, managing director on the CER advisory team, said: ‘This transaction marks the culmination of a major acquisition and asset management effort through our joint venture with Safestore to assemble an institutional-quality self-storage portfolio of scale with exposure to prime cities in the Netherlands and Belgium. We believe that the market fundamentals for European self-storage remain highly attractive and look forward to working alongside Safestore in identifying further opportunities on the continent.’
The sale of CER’s self-storage platform in Benelux continues an active beginning of the year for the European Real Estate platform, following the acquisition of 33 logistics assets across 14 transactions in the U.K, France, Germany and the Netherlands, three residential projects in Madrid and further investment into the expansion of UK senior housing developer Beechcroft.
