Montréal, Québec – June 26, 2023 – Ivanhoé Cambridge, a global real estate industry leader, is pleased to announce its new strategic partnership with Safely Store Self Storage (“Safely Store”), targeting the self storage sector in the United States, marking its first entry into this alternative industrial asset class. Safely Store is a self storage dedicated investment platform formed by the principals of Iron Point Partners, LLC (“Iron Point”) and the self storage platform of Taylor/Theus Holdings, Inc. (“Taylor/Theus”). Ivanhoé Cambridge alongside another global institutional investor and Safely Store will be investing an initial US$400 million in equity to be deployed nationally over the next few years, with the potential to scale up further over time.
The partnership’s investment strategy is focused on Tier I and Tier II markets, and it is designed to cover the risk/return spectrum to blend to a value-add return with a mix of ground-up developments, redevelopments, and acquisitions of lease-up projects and undermanaged operational assets.
“Self storage has proven its resilience throughout economic cycles, outperforming almost all other sectors over the short and long term, which makes it an attractive addition to our portfolio as we continually seek diversification in buoyant segments,” said Michael Neuman, Head, Industrial, United States and Latin America at Ivanhoé Cambridge. “What’s more, this asset class, by its very nature, supports our strong sustainable investment convictions by servicing local communities with a high-quality offering for a low associated carbon footprint.”
Ivanhoé Cambridge is particularly excited to be entering this space alongside like-minded and experienced strategic partners, including Iron Point Partners and Taylor/Theus, who have established themselves in the self storage sector with a strong track record and a network built over the past 15 years.
“The Iron Point team is very excited to continue our long-standing relationship with Taylor/Theus through the creation of the Safely Store platform alongside our new partners, Ivanhoé Cambridge and another preeminent, global institutional investor,” said Ryan Haas, Partner at Iron Point Partners. “We feel that Safely Store, with its nimble management team and strong historical track record, coupled with our blue-chip investors, should create a tremendous opportunity going forward.”
“Our initial, lower leverage capital structure and the ability to adapt to real-time market conditions by investing across the spectrum of self storage opportunities should allow Safely Store to be uniquely positioned to create a high-quality, national portfolio,” said Tyler Colpini, CEO of Safely Store. “The self storage sector is recession resilient and possesses many attractive attributes that typically make the property type inherently lower risk and higher return, including high NOI margins, low capital expenditures, a sticky customer base, and monthly leases that provide a hedge against inflation.”