Something I have noticed since the rise of Bitcoin – people who would have otherwise been disinterested, have started to play around with the stock market.

Invest a little here and there, just as you would on Luno with the various cryptocurrencies they handle, and all of a sudden you have an attractive passive income.

But while it’s relatively easy to find overseas companies doing well, sometimes playing your cards closer to home is just as rewarding.

One local stock that has investors intrigued is South Africa’s Stor-Age.

Described as “the leading and largest self storage property fund and brand” in the country, they have been able to successfully develop, acquire and manage self-storage properties across South Africa for more than a decade.

They have been listed on the JSE since November 12, 2015, and now service more than 18 500 tenants with 43-property portfolios covering 300 000 square metres of gross lettable area in South Africa’s largest cities.

According to BusinessLive, this is just what investors are looking for:

Investors have been looking at more specialised property stocks for value — such as Stor-Age, which is the only JSE-listed group that invests solely in self-storage assets.

And there you thought their highly-visible, easily-accessible, prime-suburban locations were just good advertising.

Here’s today’s market share price, according to Bloomberg:

Not too shabby for a father-son duo. Just shows, it’s not always bad to go into business with family.

Since the end of October, that property portfolio now extends to the UK:

Stor-Age raised R1.275bn of equity at a price of R11.50 per share. “These funds would allow us to conclude the circa R1.3bn acquisition of Storage King on October 31, while maintaining a conservatively well-placed balance sheet post the effective date of the transaction,” said CEO Gavin Lucas.

Storage King is the sixth-largest self-storage brand in the UK.

“The strong demand for our stock resulted in us increasing the size of the capital raise from the initially indicated R900m, up to the maximum allowable value of R1.275bn,” said Lucas…

“A significant portion of the company’s underlying earnings will have the added benefit of serving as a hard currency rand hedge,” said Lucas.

But beyond property, there’s another reason to look to Stor-Age for investing:

…their management team [has] run the core businesses leanly and made damned sure that acquisitions add meaningful value without dangerously stretching the balance sheet. In addition, these companies produce financial statements that allow investors to easily glean the underlying value and evaluate prospects.

Unlike Steinhoff, yes – read more about that here.

But if investing in stock is not something you’re particularly interested in, you can always just store your extra stuff at one of Stor-Age’s 40 locations in, yes, major cities across South Africa.

With that much interest in the company, you can be assured your valuables will be well looked after.

Oh, and you can get 50% off the first month by using this form. Pleasure.

[source: sharenet&bloomberg&businesslive&businesslive]