Why Blackstone Was Able To Turn Simply Self Storage Into an Extra $1 Billion in Under Three Years
July 24, 2023 | Andria Cheng | CoStar News
Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust’s deal to sell Simply Self Storage to Public Storage for $2.2 billion signals more than the seller collecting $1 billion over what it paid less than three years ago. It also indicates optimism about long-term self-storage demand in certain parts of the country didn’t ease with the pandemic.
The sale by the unit of private-equity giant Blackstone Group comes in the wake of a strong uptick in the desire for self-storage properties during COVID-19 as people moved or downsized and needed a place to store their belongings.
While that trend may have eased, the portfolio of Simply, based in Orlando, Florida, is positioned to take advantage of migration in the United States toward the Sun Belt that’s been going on for some years now. It includes 127 wholly-owned properties and 9 million net rentable square feet across 18 states and in markets with population growth that has been about double the national average since 2018, Blackstone, the world’s largest commercial real estate owner, and Public Storage said Monday in a statement.
