Larry Lipman’s Safeland is spinning off Safestore, its fledgling self-storage warehouse arm, into a separate company quoted on the alternative investment market.
Lipman will chair Safestore, which is expected to have a £5m market value when it floats on AIM later this month. He wants to expand the company, which has three sites in north London, throughout the UK.
Safeland plans to acquire new sites and lease them to Safestore.
Lipman said: “Safestore will be better able to exploit opportunities for expansion, both organic and by acquisition as an independent group.”
Self-storage warehouses are big business in the US, but a relatively new concept in the UK. The market is dominated by three companies which own around 50 centres between them.
Lipman has appointed Catherine McEwen, former operations manager at Acorn Storage, as Safestore’s managing director.
Following the split, Safe-land will retain a 10% stake in Safestore. Safeland spun off its property services division Hercules in 1996.
