Big Yellow Q3 revenues up 8% to £29.6m

The company's 73 stores decreased in occupancy by 170,000 sq ft (or 3.7% of the maximum lettable area at December 31) compared to a loss of 137,000 sq ft in the corresponding quarter last year (3.0% of MLA in 2016).

The company said the period was traditionally its seasonally weakest.

Net rents continued to improve over the quarter with the average achieved per sq ft for the quarter up 1.3% year on year.
Closing net achieved rent per sq ft was £26.89, an increase of 2.1% from the same time last year and up 3.3% from 31 March 2017.

Chief executive James Gibson said that after a strong summer the latest quarter saw an expected seasonal attrition in occupancy, closing at 80.1%, an increase of 4.6 ppts from the same time last year.

“Given the higher levels of overall occupancy in the business, we are pleased to have seen continued improvement in net rents driven by our pricing model,” he said.

“We are also reporting improving growth in year on year revenue over the quarter, with an increase to 8% from 5.7% growth reported at the half year.”

“Importantly, although this was driven mainly through occupancy, we did see a contribution from an improvement in average net achieved rents.”

“We remain focused on occupancy, January has started positively, and we look forward to delivering growth in occupancy and revenue over the current fourth quarter and continuing this into our seasonally stronger spring and summer trading period.”