Big Yellow lifts interim dividend as profit rises

Big Yellow posted a 69% rise in first half pre-tax profit and lifted its interim dividend as occupancy and revenue grew.

The self-storage provider said pre-tax profit for the year to the end of September came in at £59.6m from £35.3m on revenue of £50.2m, up 26% from the same period last year.

Adjusted pre-tax profit, meanwhile, was up 30% to £23.9m and Big Yellow lifted its interim dividend by 16% to 12.1p per share.

The company said like-for-like closing group occupancy was up 4.1 percentage points to 77.3% compared to 73.2% at 31 March 2015, while occupancy growth over the six month period was 200,000 sq ft compared with 288,000 in the first half of last year.

Executive chairman Nicholas Vetch said: “We believe Big Yellow is well placed to withstand future headwinds, given the security of our capital structure and market leading brand.

“As the Big Yellow portfolio is approaching 80%, we remain relentlessly focussed on occupancy gain at this stage, but in addition we have intensified our efforts to develop new capacity.”

At 0922 GMT, Big Yellow shares were down 0.3% to 745p.