(Alliance News) - Big Yellow Group PLC on Monday said it is seeing signs that trading patterns are normalising, as third quarter revenue rose by almost a third annually.
In the quarter ended December 31, revenue increased 30% to GBP45.2 million from GBP34.7 million a year earlier. Total revenue for the financial year to date is up 26% to GBP127.0 million from GBP100.5 million.
The Bagshot, Surrey-based self-storage provider said revenue was bolstered by a higher number of home moves.
"This quarter has seen a return to a more typical seasonal winter slowdown. Last year was impacted by Covid restrictions, and therefore a more sensible comparison is to 2019. Move-outs were higher over this quarter than in 2019, reflective of a record first quarter's occupancy gain leading up to the tapering off of the stamp duty holiday. Customers moving out in the quarter stayed with us on average for 8 months, reflective of shorter-term use around house moves, home improvements, students and other life events," Big Yellow said.
Closing occupancy across its 104 store estate was 85.5% on December 31, up from 82.6% a year earlier.
Big Yellow said a new store in Hayes, west London opened on Monday. Elsewhere, it is on the site of four stores in its development pipeline.
"There have been minor delays as a result of the impacts of the pandemic which we have worked hard to mitigate, and the openings are now expected to be April 2022 (Hove), July 2022 (Harrow), August 2022 (Kingston North) and Summer 2023 (Kings Cross)," the company added.
"In the recent wave of Covid, which first impacted London, we saw a peak of 7% of our colleagues isolating in early January, which has reduced in the last week to 2%."
Big Yellow shares were 0.9% lower at 1,553.00 pence each in London on Monday morning.
By Eric Cunha; ericcunha@alliancenews.com
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Big Yellow (BYG)