Shares in Safestore Holdings dipped in early trades, despite the self-storage provider reporting “solid” trading conditions in the UK market.
On Wednesday, its share price fell by over three per cent as the listed firm unveiled a 0.8 per cent fall in revenue over the six months to April.
Underlying earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation was also down 3.7 per cent to £67m.
Meanwhile, satutory profit before income tax came in at £173.7m up from £103.4m in the first half of 2023.
After the slight fall in earnings, chief Frederic Vecchioli described the performance as “robust”.
He said: “Our track record has delivered market leading returns with revenue growing 49.3 per cent since pre-pandemic as we grew occupied space by 31.8 per cent and increased rental rates by 14.7 per cent and ancillary revenue by 33.3 per cent across all of our markets.
“During the period our central pricing approach has meant that we have been able to adapt our approach across our different markets to enable optimisation of revenue.”
He added: “In the UK, despite a challenging economic backdrop, we have seen solid like-for-like revenue performance with broadly flat average storage rates and a small occupancy decline.
“We have delivered strong like-for-like revenue growth in our other markets demonstrating the value of our diversified approach led by our Benelux markets with 13.5 per cent like-for-like revenue increases.”
Meanwhile, the dividend was increased by one per cent to 30.1p which it said was in line with its payout policy.
Shares in the firm are down by around eight per cent in the year to date.
Analysts at Peel Hunt rated the stock at ‘Hold’.
“A tougher trading period is reflected in a small pullback in revenue, and a 10.5 per cent decline in EPS. The dividend has been upped by one per cent, and the shares sit on c.19x based on a five per cent cut to our 2024E forecast. Hold, TP 830p.”