Moorfield fund acquires UK self storage portfolio with JV
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UK-focused real estate fund manager Moorfield Group has acquired a four-asset self storage portfolio on behalf of its Moorfield Real Estate Fund V.
The acquisition has been made through the company’s joint venture with Stor-Age, the South African self storage Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) and the owner of UK self storage business Storage King.
The portfolio comprises four modern properties with a total GLA of 28,000 sq m (302,400 sq ft) located in UK towns Banbury in Oxfordshire, Wednesbury in the West Midlands (pictured), Frome in Somerset and Amesbury in Wiltshire.
The portfolio will be operated by Storage King, which currently has over 1 million sq ft of storage space across the UK under its third-party management platform Management 1st.
Three of the properties have been constructed since 2007 and have a blended occupancy rate of over 90%. The Amesbury asset is a new, 9,476 sq m purpose-built facility scheduled to open in April.
The acquisition is the largest to date on behalf of the JV between Moorfield and Stor-Age, which is targeting a further £50 to £100 million of investment in modern, tech-enabled high-profile self storage assets in the UK.
“This was a rare opportunity to acquire a portfolio of assets in a high barrier-to-entry and fast-growing sector, which has demonstrated its resilience versus almost all other real estate sectors over the past two years and which is ideally placed to benefit from a number of favorable structural trends,” said Moorfield Group senior investment manager Chris Perera.
