SINGAPORE (EDGEPROP) - APG Investments Asia, the investment manager for the largest pension provider in the Netherlands, and CapitaLand Investment (CLI), a global real estate investment manager, have acquired storage platform Extra Space Asia (ESA).

ESA was founded in 2007 and has grown into one of the Asia-Pacific’s largest self-storage businesses, with about 70 owned and leased facilities across six Asian gateway cities. The portfolio comprises more than 1 million square feet of net lettable area, with an occupancy of over 90% and more than 70% of its net property income being generated in Singapore.

Both companies also entered a joint venture to boost their new acquisition into an Asia-focused self-storage platform. “CLI and APG are fully committed to the vision of creating a dominant Asia-focused self-storage platform that delivers long-term sustainable value to investors,” says Patricia Goh, managing director, Southeast Asia, CLI.

In a 90:10 joint venture, APG and CLI have respectively committed an initial equity investment of $570 million with an option to increase their investment up to $1.14 billion to fund the acquisition of ESA and its expansion needs.

Goh adds that the foothold gained through acquiring ESA enables the partners to look at scaling the platform through future mergers and acquisitions, as well as the conversion of existing assets into self-storage facilities.

JLL advised and helped the new owners to manage the sale process of ESA. “In the current environment, self-storage [assets offer] attractive and stable returns compared to traditional real estate assets. It is an asset class which is expected to grow in Asia on the back of increased adoption by users with need for more space at home, given recent working trends,” says Ting Lim, head of capital markets, Singapore, JLL.