Lok'n Store Share Discussion Threads

[envirovision] 13/9/2010 11:28

Investors Chronicle value investors Lok to Store. SIMON THOMPSON: Our companies editor sees significant upside from a small-cap stock in the self storage sector.

[cockneyrebel] 13/9/2010 09:37

Cup and handle breakouit forming here by the look of it.

CR

[cockneyrebel] 07/9/2010 14:48

that's quite a jump on the ask in one go there - mm's a bit nervous of seeing a buyer? perhaps they are short of stock.

CR

[scburbs] 31/8/2010 11:24

Safestore reporting strong growth in occupancy and rate. Excellent read across to LOK.

"Closing occupancy at 31 July 2010 was 2.98 million sq ft. This represents an overall occupancy level of 59% against MLA (30 April 2010: 56%).

· The occupancy level in mature stores at 31 July 2010 was 67%, up from 64% at 30 April 2010.

· Average rental rate for the quarter at £25.17 per sq ft was 3.5% higher than Q3 20091 and 2.8% higher than Q2 2010.

...

The UK rental rate has been particularly pleasing, growing 5.2% compared to Q3 2009 and 4.1% against Q2 2010"

[jonut] 23/8/2010 12:05

Director buying on 18Aug10, suggests it wasn't at that time



Interesting times, though, what!!

Jonut

[bogotatrader] 22/8/2010 21:46

Is this stock in 'play'? - 130p plus bid?

[jonut] 18/8/2010 10:44

Corresponding buy RNS today, mirroring Mr Ellingham's sell,



Now held by Duart Storage LLC, notified by DUART CAPITAL MANAGEMENT LLC

Hmmm

jonut

[jonut] 17/8/2010 15:50

Following the RNS for the Laxey holding,(7.44m less existing 2.41m
shares) is an increase of 5.03m shares.



The Audley RNS deals with the sale of 4.26m



and this for the sale of Oliver Bernard Ellingham's 5% stake, 1.28m
shares leaves 0.5m shares unaccounted.






Mr Ellingham is a director of Woking Storage Solutions Limited, operated by...
LOK.

Thoughts anybody,

Jonut

[scburbs] 13/8/2010 16:34

Laxey at 29% presumably from buying the Audley stake. Corporate action imminent?

"Rumours of stake switch at Lok'n Store
13/08/2010 06:18

A 15.9% stake in Lok'n Store owned by Audley Capital Partners is rumoured to have changed hands.

Audley is the company's second-largest shareholder. The shares closed up 2.5p at 87.5p.

13/08/10 Financial Times 30
Daily Telegraph B7"

Source EGi

[scburbs] 28/7/2010 07:02

Positive update, particularly prices up 5%.

"Lok'nStore Group plc, the AIM listed self-storage company, is pleased to announce that since the first half results were reported in April, trading has been good and the Company's operating performance for the full year to 31 July 2010 is in line with market expectations.

The Board expects occupancy to have grown by 3% and prices for self storage per square foot to grow by 5% over the 12 month period. With our strategy of constraining capital expenditure and maintaining focus on the cash generation of the business, margins have improved year on year, and the cash position has increased to over £5 million (£3.9 million 31.01.10).

In addition to the emphasis on operating efficiency, the Board continues to examine the portfolio for asset management gains as demonstrated by its recent announcement extending the leases on two of the Company's stores on significantly improved terms.

Lok'nStore is expecting to announce its preliminary results for the year ended 31 July 2010 on Monday 8th November 2010."

[scburbs] 07/7/2010 07:15

Positive update from BYG. Industry trends clearly positive.

[scburbs] 16/6/2010 06:40

Safestore results out. Performance trends looking good.

"Operational Highlights:

· Average rental rate up 1.1% to £25.51 per square foot ("sq ft") on the same period last year

· Occupancy increased by 53,000 sq ft in the period compared to a loss of 11,200 sq ft in the comparable period last year. Overall, closing occupancy2 is 122,000 sq ft up on April 2009 at 2.83 million sq ft

· Over 40,000 customers, up 6.5% from April 2009

...

The second half of the year has begun positively with high levels of new enquiries and reservations, nearing the record levels seen in late 2007. We continue to see progression on the rate per sq ft and we have seen the underlying occupancy movement trading ahead of the prior year for 11 consecutive months. We believe that our operationally focused business model will continue to show resilience and our diversified store portfolio and customer base will continue to mitigate trading risk.

...

The average rate per sq ft increased by 1.1% to £25.51 and we expect to see increased momentum in rental rate during the second half of the financial year.

Closing occupancy (including circa 21,000 sq ft of bulk space let) was 122,000 sq ft up on April 2009 and 53,000 sq ft up on October 2009 at 2.83 million sq ft.

Ancillary revenues for the period, derived from the sale of contents insurance, storage accessories and miscellaneous items, increased by 3.4% to £5.6 million (six months ended 30 April 2009: £5.4 million). This represents 16.1% of self storage revenues."

[mrstock] 04/6/2010 10:20

For a geared company LOK makes next to nothing in net profit for its shareholders. The cost of management is way beyond acceptable.

[scburbs] 17/5/2010 06:51

BYG results out. Reporting improving conditions in Q1 2010. Key drivers of occupancy and pricing showing positive trends.

"In the quarter to March we saw the start of the usual seasonal pick up, which was stronger than in 2009. There is clearly a recovery under way in the performance of this business evidenced by year on year quarterly growth and the levels of reservations, phone calls and web enquiries coming into the business. The pace of this recovery will to some extent depend on continuing improvement in housing transactions and economic growth, which drives business and consumer confidence.

In an improving economic environment, with growing self storage demand from businesses and consumers, we are confident that our brand positioning, the prime locations of our purpose built stores and excellent levels of customer service, will deliver outperformance. Our principal medium term objective remains to drive cash flow through improving the occupancy of the Group's wholly owned stores from 56% to 85%. The overhead structure in both the stores and head office required to achieve this is embedded and therefore the vast proportion of new revenue falls through to operating profit and cash flow."



"Since the spring of last year, we have seen an improving level of demand, and over the summer delivered significantly more occupancy growth than in the prior year. The first half growth across the wholly owned portfolio was 62,000 sq ft against a decline of 10,000 sq ft last year. In the second half of the year, our traditionally weaker trading period, occupancy grew by 4,000 sq ft, compared to a decline of 75,000 sq ft in the prior year. If we include the stores in Big Yellow Limited Partnership, total growth in occupancy over the year was 140,000 sq ft.

This growth has been achieved whilst improving our rental yield, from a low of £25.25 in April 2009 to £26.85 at 31 March 2010, an increase of 6%. This is in line with the slowly improving picture in relation to housing transactions, consumer and business confidence and the economy generally experienced so far."

"We have a rolling programme of price increases to existing storage customers, in most cases providing an annual increase in storage rents of 4.25%. Over the last six years average net storage rental growth has been 5.3% per annum."

[scburbs] 26/4/2010 11:43

A good background piece on the industry.

"The Self-storage Market in the UK

The self-storage market in the UK has grown rapidly over the last decade and continues to offer a great opportunity, particularly to major operators such as Lok'nStore. The 2008 UK Self-Storage Association Industry report prepared by Mintel estimated that the industry had grown by between 8% and 15% annually over the past five years. In its 2009 update Mintel reported that despite the tough economic climate, the industry had grown by around 4% over the past year in terms of available rentable space.

In the UK there are now about 800 primary facilities (not including container self-storage facilities) and around 28 million rentable square feet - an increase of more than one million square feet (4%) of space in the last year. There is 0.5 sq ft of rentable space for each person in the UK. There are over 300 separate companies operating self-storage facilities in the UK with around 45% of the available space in the hands of the larger operators. Lok'nStore is the fourth largest and one of three quoted storage operators in the UK.

The industry in the UK generates revenues of about £360 million per annum and has over 235,000 customers currently storing.

The more mature US market grew from 2.9 sq ft per head of population in 1994 to 7.4 sq ft in 2009 with over 50,000 facilities throughout the US. There are also 1,300 facilities in Australia and New Zealand representing around 1.1 sq ft per member of the population. The lower penetration in the UK contrasts with the difference in population density which is only 32 per sq km in the US against 246 per sq km in the UK. This creates far more pressure to use property resources efficiently in the UK, which is a notable driver of demand for self-storage. Combined with this, the restrictive town planning regime in the UK is a strong barrier to entry in the industry, although in the short to medium term more property will become available to the self-storage industry as competitive uses for sites struggle economically."

[scburbs] 26/4/2010 11:32

"Lok'n Store (LOK, 83p, £21.26m) Interims to January 2010 saw revenues of £5.19m (£5.09m), operating profits of £0.44m (£0.25m) with PBT of £0.19m (loss £0.48m) reflecting lower interest costs as well and 0.24p (loss 1.92p) EPS with 0.33p (nil) DPS declared. Investors should note that although the group missed last year's dividend it instead paid an increased final to maintain a 1p full year payout. The group has an existing £40m banking facility agreed till 2012 with some £11.9m undrawn, a net debt of some £24.2m (£25.5m a year ago). As important is the underlying NAV of 210p, up 1.5%, which remains a huge reassurance and attraction. Impressively the group increased self-storage prices by 2.8% while growing ancillary revenues by 24.6%. With occupancy up 10% and planning permissions on all 4 proposed new stores which will increase net group space by some 13%, the group is well placed to grow further. BUY"

[mrstock] 07/4/2010 12:09

Any future for this stock or is it dead money?

[scburbs] 15/2/2010 21:06

A good bit of publicity on alternative uses in the Evening Standard.

"That is except for a cunning few, who have found a way to extend their tiny homes and procure that much-needed extra space. No, there hasn't been a boom in loft conversions, garden sheds or conservatory extensions (after all, you would have a hard time welding any of those to the end of your studio flat) but for as little as £30 a month, Londoners are bagging themselves a spare room of corrugated steel and a yellow door - also known as a storage unit. These people are not just using their units as a place to ditch summer wardrobes while winter persists or as a place to store rarely-used junk. These people are moving part of their homes into their units."

[affc21] 09/2/2010 12:18

UPDATE: British Land Prepares For Buys As NAV Rises 18%



Should be more good news on the horizon, for the NAV here...

[scburbs] 04/2/2010 16:51

"Goldman Sachs has taken up coverage of Big Yellow Group with a "buy" rating.

The broker said it believed that improved UK economic conditions and increasing housing transaction levels would propel a recovery in demand for self-storage space."

Source: EGi

[scburbs] 02/2/2010 07:56

Excellent trading statement. Occupancy up strongly and pricing up with ancillary revenue continuing to perform well.

"Trading during the first half of our financial year was encouraging, particularly during the seasonally quieter winter quarter, with occupancy down only 0.5% since 31 July 2009. Occupancy to 31 January 2010 grew by 10.2% year to year.

Average prices per sq ft for self-storage have increased by 2.8% since July 31 2009, against last year's 0.1% increase over the comparable period, and the benefits of last year's cost cutting are continuing to feed through.

Increasing ancillary revenue has been a key operational objective over the last year and this progress has gained traction during the first half. Following changes made to our insurance sales procedures, the proportion of new customers taking insurance continues to increase."