GlobeSt.com UPDATE: U-Store-It Completes $212M Buy

CLEVELAND-The locally headquartered self-storage REIT U-Store-It has closed on its acquisition of 3.6 million sf from National Self Storage and the Schomac Group Inc. The purchase price was $212 million. It was paid with stock, cash and assumed debt. The transaction, which closed in stages over the past 10 days, ultimately included 66 self-stage facilities, four office parks and a mobile home park. When GlobeSt.com reported the deal as pending in March , the purchase price was $217 million and included 67 self-storage facilities. U-Store-It chief financial officer and president Steven Osgood tells GlobeSt.com the $5-million price difference is that one self-storage facility ultimately was not acquired. As for the office parks and mobile home park, he says they were always part of the deal but not mentioned in the company’s March 3 SEC filing. The self-storage facilities that were acquired are located in three existing U-Store-It markets, Southern California, Tennessee and Arizona, and four new ones, Northern California, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. The rentable sf in the self-storage portfolio is 3.4 million sf. The office parks total another 200,000 sf. No detail was provided on the mobile home park.The purchase price was comprised of approximately $61.5 million of Class B Units in the Operating Partnership; the assumption of approximately $79.5 million of outstanding debt by the Operating Partnership; and approximately $71 million in cash. The cash was funded with the proceeds from an $80-million mortgage loan that YSI VI LLC, an indirect subsidiary of the U-Store-It, borrowed on July 19 under a mortgage loan agreement with Lehman Brothers Bank, FSB. The loan is secured by 24 U-Store-It self-storage facilities, bears interest at a fixed rate of 5.13% and matures in August 2012, according to an SEC filing. With this acquisition, U-Store-It now owns 309 facilities in 25 states totaling approximately 18.8 million rentable sf. The company says it plans to utilize a third party Arizona-based call center, which was previously used by National, to better serve its West Coast facilities. Between the time the National Self Storage deal was announced and closed, U-Store-It closed on a few other acquisitions, including 863,000-sf in 18 self-storage facilities for $34 million from Liberty Self-Stor Ltd., a subsidiary of Liberty Self-Stor Inc.; six facilities totaling 240,000 sf (rentable) from A-1 Self Storage for $28.1 million; and another three facilities totaling 200,000 sf (rentable) from an unnamed seller for another $14.9 million.