Sam Zell and Country unite auto-armazenagem business in Brazil

São Paulo – the real estate magnate Sam Zell and country Investments agreed on Wednesday to combine their business of auto storage in Brazil in a joint venture, with the goal of more than doubling the capacity up to 2020.
According to the plan, the company resulting from the merger of GuardeAqui, Zell, and the homeland should Kipit, open storage units in the period 30, an investment that may reach 600 million dollars based on average cost of construction of a unit in the local market.
Each unit costs about 20 million reais to be assembled, said in an interview Wang Antun, a partner at real estate.
Although he refused to detail the investment commitments of each of the partners, Antun said the bulk of the resources should come from Homeland, once Kipit is the smaller of the two companies.
With about of 20 units, the joint venture will account for a third of gross leasable area for self storage in the country, told investors in a statement. The combined company, which will operate under the brand name GuardeAqui, should be practically equal participation of the partners, said Antun.
The goal is to expand the leadership of GuardeAqui in the fragmented market of auto storage of Brazil, which gained momentum in the last decade when there was a growth of porimóveis residential demand.
The auto storage lets consumers keep their belongings when moving into smaller homes or during longer trips, for example. The sector also gained momentum with the advance of electronic commerce in the country.
When the combined company achieve the goal of open 50 units, Zell and Homeland will begin to consider a possible exit to the GuardeAqui, through an initial stock offering or a sale to another investor or another option, said Antun.
Although the self storage market offers one of the more stable real estate returns, the thread remains underdeveloped in Brazil given the scarce funding, said Chief Executive Officer of GuardeAqui, Allan Paiotti.
Anyway, the flexible nature of self storage leasing contracts and the fact that enterprise customers represent half of their business ensured a sector crisis resistant reputation, added Paiotti.
In recent years, the brazilian auto industry attracted investors storage as the southern hemisphere Investments, based in São Paulo, and u.s.-based Evergreen Investment, that 150 million dollars was applied to create the GoodStorage in 2013. Special business unit of Goldman Sachs invested in MetroFit last year, the first investment of its kind in Brazil Bank.
The Equity International, Sam Zell, entered the GuardeAqui in 2011, investing $58 million. The Kipit is part of the real estate fund investment portfolio III of the Fatherland.