NEW YORK CITY — Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust Inc. (BREIT) has entered into an agreement to acquire Simply Self Storage from an affiliate of Brookfield Asset Management for $1.2 billion. Brookfield acquired Simply Self Storage, whose operating portfolio spans approximately 8 million square feet across the country, in 2016 through one of its funds. The deal is expected to close before the end of the year.
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP is serving as legal advisor to BREIT, and BofA Securities and Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. are serving as financial advisors to BREIT. RBC Capital Markets LLC, Newmark Group Inc. and Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP advised Brookfield. BREIT currently owns a $300 million portfolio of self-storage facilities. Following this acquisition, BREIT will be the third-largest non-listed owner of self-storage in the country.
Self-storage, which is typically viewed as a recession-resistant asset class, has seen its rates of absorption and leasing of new units rebound over the summer following a lull in move-in activity that normally occurs in the spring.
Self-storage owner-operators expect some of the truncated move-in activity from spring and summer to be offset by the fact that in-person classes at many major universities have been cancelled and a federal eviction moratorium remains in place. Whereas these forces might normally drive move-outs and declines in occupancy, the opposite purports to be more likely in 2020, meaning some units that would have been vacated may stay occupied.