RESULTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2025

 Big Yellow Group PLC

Results for the YEAR ended 31 MARCH 2025

HIGHLIGHTS

1 See note 28 for glossary of terms

2 Excluding Kings Cross (opened June 2023)

3 See reconciliation in Financial Review on page 18

4 Statutory metric

5 The dividend paid in the year is all Property Income Distribution ("PID")

6 See reconciliation in Portfolio Summary on page 13

7 See reconciliation in note 10

8 See reconciliation in note 12

Highlights

Nicholas Vetch CBE, Executive Chairman of Big Yellow, commented:

"We are pleased to have reported another set of results that are testament to the underlying resilience of our business. We delivered another year of revenue growth and achieved a return to growth in adjusted earnings per share, even when considering the dilutive effects of the placing in October 2023. 

The elevated levels of macroeconomic uncertainty since the beginning of April have impacted confidence and led to some softening of demand and some loss of occupancy, however, rate growth materially outperformed the same period last year resulting in revenue growth of 3% since the year end. We expect our underlying store operating cost inflation to fall further from the 4% seen in the second half of the year, notwithstanding the impact of the recent rise in employer's national insurance.

The Group maintains a low absolute level of debt, which allows flexibility in our hedging strategy, with £210 million of floating rate debt, hence we are, and expect to continue, benefiting from short-term interest rate reductions.

Our decision a decade or so ago to develop the next phase of new stores, with a focus on London, continues to bear fruit. Ten stores have opened in the last five years, with three due to open this year and five the year after. We are in the process of clearing the pre-start planning conditions on our site in Kensington Olympia, following which we will commence demolition of the existing building and construction of its replacement. This will be the most important project the Group has embarked on, close to one of the wealthiest and most densely populated areas of Central London.

We expect this next phase of store openings (eight of which are in London) to make a material contribution to both revenue and earnings in the reasonably near future.

Our strategy remains much as it was 25 years ago; build the best quality freehold stores in the best locations, with the highest barriers to entry, focusing on operational excellence, with low debt to deliver compounding growth in earnings and cash flow."

ABOUT US

Big Yellow is the UK's brand leader in self storage and operates from a platform of 109 stores. We have a pipeline comprising 14 proposed self storage facilities (including one replacement store). The current maximum lettable area of the existing platform is 6.4 million sq ft. When fully built out the portfolio will provide approximately 7.4 million sq ft of flexible storage space. 99% of our stores and sites by value are held freehold and long leasehold, with the remaining 1% short leasehold. Currently by revenue 75% of our stores are in London and its commuter towns, with the balance in larger regional conurbations.

Our stores utilise state of the art technology for our digital and operating platforms including security, and we focus on locating our stores in high profile, accessible, main road locations. We also focus on providing excellent customer service, a highly engaged employee culture, and with significant and increasing investment in sustainability. 

CHAIRMAN'S STATEMENT

Big Yellow Group PLC ("Big Yellow", "the Group" or "the Company"), the UK's brand leader in self storage, is pleased to announce its results for the year ended 31 March 2025.

Financial results

We have delivered a resilient operating performance in the year to March, with occupancy stabilised and further growth in net rents. This resulted in a 3% increase in store revenue, and a return to adjusted eps growth for the year.  

We are pleased to have delivered a significant reduction in like-for-like store operating expense inflation from 10% in the first half of the year to 4% in the second half. Additionally, given our flexible hedging strategy, the Group has benefited from a 9% fall in annual interest expense from the previous year.

Revenue for the year was £204.5 million (2024: £199.6 million), an increase of 2%, with store revenue up 3%. Like-for-like store revenue (which excludes new store openings) was up 2% driven by improvements in average net rent. Store EBITDA was £143.2 million, an increase of £0.2 million from the prior year (2024: £143.0 million).

The adjusted profit before tax in the year was £115.6 million up 8% from £107.3 million in 2024. Adjusted earnings per share increased by 3% to 57.8p (2024: 55.9p), with the additional shares in issue following the October 2023 placing impacting the first half of the year. 

The Group's cash flow from operating activities (after net finance costs and pre-working capital movements) increased by £1.8 million (2%) to £111.9 million for the year (2024: £110.1 million). 

The Group's statutory profit before tax was £203.9 million, a decrease from £241.0 million in the prior year. There was a revaluation surplus for the current year of £79.7 million, compared to a surplus of £131.2 million in the prior year.

Development pipeline

During the year we opened a new 65,000 sq ft freehold store in Farnham Road, Slough and closed the existing leasehold store, saving £0.4 million annual rent. The new store achieved 81% occupancy at 31 March 2025, and is trading at the same revenue as the previous store. Slough Farnham Road is our first net zero store, with a solar PV installation of 200 kWp (our largest to date), battery storage for the energy we generate resulting in an EPC rating of A+.

We have acquired two development sites since the last year end. In May 2024, in Leamington Spa for £3 million, that will also serve the university town of Warwick, and in April 2025 in Coventry for £2.5 million.

We have been successful in achieving three key planning consents in London during the year; at West Kensington, Kentish Town and at Staples Corner. The store in West Kensington will be only the second purpose-built self storage facility in the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham, alongside our Fulham store, with Kentish Town being the first purpose-built store in the London Borough of Camden. These, along with the other sites in the pipeline, are very high-quality locations, and will help consolidate our market-leading platform. We now have planning consent on 10 of our 14 development sites. 

We are currently constructing nine new stores all in London or its conurbation towns at an approximate cost of £161 million which can comfortably be funded from cash flow, surplus asset sales and our existing debt facilities.

The projected net operating income of the increase in our total capacity of 1.0 million sq ft when stabilised, at today's prices, is £32.5 million representing an approximate 15% return on the incremental capital deployed. If we include the replacement store at Staples Corner, due to open in Summer 2026, the proforma net operating income increases to £36.6 million, a return of approximately 8.7% on the total development cost of approximately £422 million, including land already acquired. The total cost to complete is £232 million. 

Capital structure

It remains our view that elevated levels of debt over cycles destroys value and hence our strategy is to maintain debt at modest levels. The Group's interest cover for the period (expressed as the ratio of cash generated from operations pre-working capital movements against interest paid) was 6.1 times (2024: 5.6 times), with the Group's net debt to EBITDA ratio now 3.1x (2024: 3.0x).

Net debt was £388.7 million at 31 March 2025 (2024: £385.4 million), and the Group has undrawn committed facilities of £175 million. Approximately 47% of our debt is fixed, with the balance floating, in line with our hedging policy, and our current average cost of drawn debt is 5.0%, with any further cuts in interest rates benefitting next year.

The Group owns its assets largely freehold, representing some 99% by value of our portfolio (including long leasehold stores) which has shielded us from the significant rise in industrial and warehouse rents that has occurred over the last decade or more. We view rent liabilities as quasi-debt. Following the closure of Farnham Road, Slough last summer and Staples Corner in due course to a new freehold store we expect our total rent liability to fall to approximately £1.1 million per annum.

Dividends

The Group's dividend policy is to distribute a minimum of 80% of full year adjusted earnings per share. The final distribution of PID declared is 23.8 pence per share. This brings the total distribution declared for the year to 46.4 pence per share, an increase of 3% from the prior year (2024: 45.2p). 

Our people

As we announced last year, John Hunter joined the business as COO in April 2024 and has made a very successful start to leading day-to-day operations and I am pleased to confirm that John will be formally joining the Board with effect from the Group's AGM this July.

We believe that any successful business requires the creation of fully engaged employee culture, and this remains a key focus within Big Yellow. Our resilient performance is a testament to our highly committed and motivated employees who operate throughout the business, whether in the stores or in head office.

Delivering outstanding customer service is a key success factor in our historic and future growth. Our customer net promoter scores ("NPS") were an average of 82.8 (2024: 80.5) over the year and demonstrated a further improvement on already high standards. NPS scores at those levels are exceptionally unusual and reflect the strong culture within this business.

On behalf of the Board, I would like to thank all our people for their dedication and support, which has been instrumental in driving our performance and sustained growth.

Outlook

We are pleased to have reported another set of results that are testament to the underlying resilience of our business. We delivered another year of revenue growth and achieved a return to growth in adjusted earnings per share, even when considering the dilutive effects of the placing in October 2023. 

The elevated levels of macroeconomic uncertainty since the beginning of April have impacted confidence and led to some softening of demand and some loss of occupancy, however, rate growth materially outperformed the same period last year resulting in revenue growth of 3% since the year end. We expect our underlying store operating cost inflation to fall further from the 4% seen in the second half of the year, notwithstanding the impact of the recent rise in employer's national insurance.

The Group maintains a low absolute level of debt, which allows flexibility in our hedging strategy, with £210 million of floating rate debt, hence we are, and expect to continue, benefiting from short-term interest rate reductions.

Our decision a decade or so ago to develop the next phase of new stores, with a focus on London, continues to bear fruit. Ten stores have opened in the last five years, with three due to open this year and five the year after. We are in the process of clearing the pre-start planning conditions on our site in Kensington Olympia, following which we will commence demolition of the existing building and construction of its replacement. This will be the most important project the Group has embarked on, close to one of the wealthiest and most densely populated areas of Central London.

We expect this next phase of store openings (eight of which are in London) to make a material contribution to both revenue and earnings in the reasonably near future.

Our strategy remains much as it was 25 years ago; build the best quality freehold stores in the best locations, with the highest barriers to entry, focusing on operational excellence, with low debt to deliver compounding growth in earnings and cash flow.

Nicholas Vetch CBE

Executive Chairman 19 May 2025

CHIEF EXECUTIVE'S STATEMENT

Trading

We are pleased to have delivered another year of revenue growth and achieved a return to growth in adjusted earnings per share, even when considering the dilutive effects of the placing in October 2023. The first half of the year saw subdued activity levels as we navigated uncertainty created by the general election and the resulting change in government. However, we saw stronger trading in the second half, which resulted in a recovery in like-for-like occupancy (up 0.1 ppt by March 2025).

We delivered rental growth, both to new and existing customers, albeit moderated compared to the prior year. This resulted in closing net rent growth of 3% in the year, which, based on a stable occupancy position, translated into 3% growth in store revenue. After a period of inflationary pressure on our cost base in recent years, we have seen underlying increases in our operating costs moderate through the year, down to a 4% increase in the second half. If we look back over the past three years, the business has navigated through the Russian invasion of Ukraine and resultant energy crisis, high inflation and the impact on the cost of living, higher interest rates and periods of political instability. Through this three-year period, after absorbing increasing interest rates and operating costs we delivered growth in revenue and adjusted profit of 19% and adjusted earnings per share growth of 10%, the latter impacted by the dilutive effect of the issue of new shares. This demonstrates the resilience of our business and validates our continued investment in further growth in our store portfolio.

We continue to see demand spread across a diverse set of drivers. However, the largest driver of demand remains from domestic customers renting storage space whilst moving home (41% of move ins during the year). We saw some increase in activity in our last quarter as house buyers sought to complete their purchase prior to the changes to the Stamp Duty thresholds from 1 April. We also saw an increase in move-ins from business customers (up 2% year on year), many of whom are online retailers or B2B traders looking for flexible mini-warehousing for e-fulfilment. Demand from national customers (5% of our occupied space) continues to be robust, with revenue growth of 11% year-on-year. Businesses occupy 36% of our occupied space overall.

Investment in our operating platform and systems

Providing our customers with a safe and secure space for their possessions is our core purpose. Accordingly, we continue to invest in the technology and physical security of our stores, whilst recognising the important role our store teams play in providing a reassuring presence during normal opening hours. This is a dual approach to achieving an accessible and secure environment for our customers.

In addition to physical security features, such as perimeter fencing, keypad-controlled gates and lighting enabled by motion detectors, we provide individually alarmed rooms, 24-hour CCTV and overnight monitoring of our stores. We are increasingly using data and AI to help detect unusual behavioural patterns that alert either our store teams or overnight monitoring service to suspicious activity. We continue to restrict access outside of normal trading hours to approximately 15% of our customers, the majority of whom are business customers. Most of our customers are happy to access the store during normal opening hours when our store teams are present. Our store teams play an important role as the final check on who we accept into our buildings as customers and importantly allow access to out of store opening hours. We believe this is critical to maintaining the security of our stores, as it cannot be replicated online.

We are trialling a mobile-based access system in three of our stores, as an alternative to the traditional pin code access system. This enables customers to unlock gates and entry points to the store via their Bluetooth enabled smartphone device. This has the potential to provide a seamless and contactless experience and reduces the risk of pin codes being forgotten or misappropriated. Should this trial prove to be successful, we will then roll this out to the wider store estate.

We continue to develop our website to drive the conversion of customers seeking self storage (over 90% of customers come through our digital channels), whilst enabling new customers to complete more and more of their onboarding journey online. As in most retail and consumer service businesses, there is a continuing trend of customers engaging digitally with self storage operators. We continually work to identify friction points in our online journeys, tackle these and thereby drive-up digital conversion and engagement levels. This ensures our store teams are focussed on dealing with any customer service issues and help drive revenue from ancillary services in the store. For example, accepting deliveries for business customers, packing material sales and optimising contents cover are all revenue generating activities that rely on our store teams to complete.

We continue to automate operational tasks performed by our store teams. We have developed our performance dashboard reporting to allow our store managers to identify issues more easily and speed up decision making. We have made improvements to our customer refund processes and sped up the onboarding journey in store for new customers. We have launched a new customer service platform, which aggregates customer feedback, whether from our internal surveys or from external sources (for example, Google and Trustpilot reviews). This allows us to easily see trends in customer feedback and address any service delivery issues even more promptly. Our use of an external data supplier to automatically track competitor pricing has allowed us to become more efficient and reactive to pricing adjustments. All of this has allowed us to operate more efficiently, whilst focussing our store teams on value-adding activities.

We continue to review and invest in our cyber security platform. We maintain our digital security standards by training our teams, implementing best-of-breed products and technologies, enhancing our policies and procedures, and fostering strategic partnerships. Our proactive approach helps us to stay ahead of potential threats and vulnerabilities as we look to maintain the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of our digital assets.

People

As ever, our continued progress as a business reflects the steadfast commitment of our people who have worked extremely hard this year, whether in head office or in our stores.

Over the past 12 months, the level of staff turnover and vacancies in the business continues to be at relatively low levels. This is encouraging and reflects the strong culture of the business, the loyalty this engenders and our ability to attract and retain the talent we need to grow going forward.

The customer service and experience delivered by our store teams is a differentiating success factor, particularly with those customers who are regular users of our facilities. Our customer feedback comments frequently refer to the excellent service delivered by specific team members. We track our customer satisfaction levels through our net promoter score, and our average over the year for move-ins and move-outs was 82.8 (2024: 80.5), which demonstrates an improvement on already very high levels of customer service.

We continue to review our store staffing structure and have not been replacing certain positions when we see staff attrition. The continual improvement in our digital journeys, along with automation and improvement of in-store processes, has allowed us to safely achieve annualised savings of £0.3 million in the year. This will help mitigate the additional £0.5 million cost from the increase in Employers National Insurance from April 2025 and we will continue to seek further reductions in store staff headcount levels where these can be safely achieved. However, as mentioned above, our store teams play an important role in delivering great customer service, income from ancillary services and maintaining the security of our stores. Whilst we continue to identify opportunities to reduce headcount, our store team members will always be required during our normal opening hours.

We continue to make improvements to our culture and practices in respect of diversity, and these are set out in our latest Inclusivity and Diversity Report, which is available on our corporate website. Our Diversity and Inclusivity Committee continues to meet regularly, and I am a standing member of the Committee. I believe diversity has a positive impact on our performance and we want to ensure we have an inclusive culture that attracts, retains and provides equal opportunity to all our team members to drive forward our business.

ESG

The Big Yellow Foundation helps support the rehabilitation of vulnerable people into work. Our store teams raise funds by asking our customers if they wish to donate to the Foundation at move-in and move-out. We also generate donations from fundraising activities carried out by our employees across the business. The Company matches all money raised in this way. Through the generosity of our customers and the efforts of our employees, we raised a record £444,000 in the year for the Foundation and provided £345,000 of funding to our seven charity partners. The total funding since the inception of the Foundation in 2018 now stands at £1.4 million.

We continue to provide free space to small local charities and community organizations across our store estate. At present we support an average of two charities per store this way. Our volunteering program allows our staff to give back to the community, with every member of staff given one day a year to volunteer with one of our seven charity partners or a charity of their choice. We also continue to provide 12-week work placements in our stores to candidates from some of our Foundation partner charities. These placements help improve confidence and work chances for the candidates. Our store teams also enjoy working alongside the candidates and find it rewarding to do so.

Our solar retrofit program continues to go from strength to strength, with our latest installation phase delivering to a further 12 stores and 1,621kWp capacity this year. This takes the total number of retrofitted stores to 48 at a cost of £16.8 million to date. Our total solar capacity across the estate is now 8.5 Megawatts, up from 0.7 Megawatts five years ago.

As part of our solar strategy, we have installed a battery at our new Slough Farnham Road store. It gives the store increased resilience against energy cost inflation by storing and reusing energy generated by the solar array on the store's roof. In the nine months since opening, 67% of the energy generated on-site has been used by the Slough store (compared to 24% across the estate), with an estimated payback on the investment in just over nine years. We intend to further test the performance and payback of this new initiative by installing combined solar and battery at new stores opening this year and retrofitting batteries at a further three stores in our current estate.

Additionally, we have started trialling lighting and heating efficiency solutions across nine different stores to investigate further opportunities to reduce our energy consumption and drive our emissions down. Once we have evaluated the results from these trials, we will look to roll out the successful solutions across more stores in the estate. We are therefore making significant progress on our journey to self-generation of our energy needs.

We continue to maintain an updated assessment of the performance of our estate by recertifying our EPCs, even when certificates are in date. We have updated 35 certificates to reflect the impact of our solar installations and energy efficiency projects. We are now projected to have all stores (bar one short leasehold) at A+, A or B by the end of 2026, well ahead of the 2028 requirement.

Further detail, including progress on our Science Based Targets, is included in the ESG Report.

Summary

Our business model, combined with continued investment in our market-leading brand, store portfolio and operating platform, has once again delivered a resilient performance over the last 12 months. We remain confident that this business can continue to deliver compounding returns over the medium to long term.

Jim Gibson

Chief Executive Officer

19 May 2025

OPERATING REVIEW

The store platform and demand

We now have a portfolio of 109 open and trading stores, with a current maximum lettable area of 6.4 million sq ft, in line with last year. 

Self storage demand is spread across a diverse set of drivers, and is largely driven by need, with security, convenience, quality of product, service and location being key factors. Awareness remains relatively low compared to commoditised products, such as hotel rooms or airline seats, albeit it is increasing slowly year-on-year with increased supply, marketing expenditure and customer use. The majority of our domestic customers are represented in ACORN profiled groups such as Flourishing Capital, Up and Coming Urbanites, Exclusive Addresses, Prosperous Professionals, Metropolitan Surroundings, Upmarket Families, Urban Aspiring Flat Dwellers and Privately Renting Professionals in Flats. The largest element of demand into our business each year is customers who use us for relatively short periods driven by a need. 

Of our move-ins during the year:

- customers renting storage space whilst moving represented 41% of move-ins during the year (2024: 41%), with homeowners representing 25% and renters 16%;

- 12% of our customers who moved in took storage space as a spare room for decluttering (2024: 12%);

- 35% of our customers used the product because some event had occurred in their lives generating the need for storage; they may be moving abroad for a job, have inherited possessions, are getting together, or separating, are students who need storage during the holidays, or homeowners developing into their lofts or basements (2024: 36%); 

- the balance of 12% of our new customer demand during the year came from businesses (2024: 11%), who stay longer and represent around 20% of our customers in store at any one time, occupying 36% of the space at 31 March 2025. 

Of our overall occupied space today, customers who are longer stay lifestyle users, decluttering into small rooms as an extension to their accommodation, occupy 10% to 15% of our space; approximately 50% of the space is customers using it for less than 12 months, for reasons which are largely event driven, which could be inheritance, moving in the owner occupied or rental sector, home improvements, travelling; the balance of 36% of our space is businesses. 

Our business customer base is comprised of online retailers, B2B traders looking for flexible mini-warehousing for e-fulfilment, service providers, those looking to shorten supply chains, and businesses looking to rationalise their other fixed costs of accommodation. For these customers, who typically are looking for rooms which could be from 50 sq ft to 500 sq ft in facilities that meet their operational requirements, the only supply in big cities is from self storage providers. The average space occupied by business customers at the year-end is 175 sq ft (2024: 177 sq ft). 

Domestic customers occupy on average 59 sq ft (2024: 58 sq ft) and pay on average 17% more in rent per sq ft than business customers (2024: 17%), however business customers do stay longer, take more space and represent around 32% of revenue (2024: 32%). 

The pandemic accelerated many structural changes that were already occurring, such as the move to online retailing and an increase in working from home facilitated by technological advances. The deindustrialisation of big cities with the conversion of commercial space into residential and other uses, has led to a shortage of suitable flexible mini-warehouse space from which to operate small scale storage and e-fulfilment, particularly in London. These developments, along with businesses increasingly seeking flexible office and storage space rather than longer inflexible leases, we believe are long-term structural trends, which will benefit our business going forward. 

From research we have previously carried out, a typical small business using storage employs around three people and 60% of them are early-stage businesses and for 50% of them this is their only space. 

In addition, we have a dedicated national customers team for businesses who wish to occupy space in multiple stores. These customers on average occupy approximately 900 sq ft, paying £29,000 per annum, and are billed and managed centrally. This area has performed strongly in the year with revenue up 11% compared to the prior year, making up 5% of occupied space.

Activity

Prospect numbers were down 3% on the prior year, however, our conversion levels improved with move-ins down only 1% and move-outs also down 1% on last year. 

Occupancy across all 109 stores increased over the year by 27,000 sq ft (2024: fall of 59,000 sq ft). Domestic occupied space increased by 90,000 sq ft over the year. Business occupancy dropped 3% or 63,000 sq ft on 1.84 million sq ft occupied at the beginning of the year.

As we have experienced over the years, there are businesses who outgrow us and move to their own accommodation, others cease operations, some are seasonal, and we continue to replace any vacated space with new move-ins from online traders, e-tailers and service providers. We are not seeing any noticeable further softening in demand from businesses, particularly in London.

The 77 Big Yellow same stores (see Portfolio Summary) are 80.9% occupied compared to 81.7% at the same time last year. The eight lease-up Big Yellow stores added 48,000 sq ft of occupancy over the year to reach closing occupancy of 64.7%. The 24 Armadillo stores, representing 10% of the Group's revenue are 76.2% occupied, compared to 74.3% at this time last year. Overall store occupancy was 78.7% (2024: 78.3%).

All stores are trading profitably at the EBITDA level.

Rental growth

We continue to manage pricing dynamically, taking account of room availability, customer demand and local competition, with our pricing model reducing promotions and increasing asking prices where individual units are in scarce supply.

We continue to price competitively to win new customers and increase rents to in-place customers on a range dependent on what they are paying relative to the current asking price, and on average these were at levels slightly ahead of wage inflation. It must be remembered that some 60% of our customers move-out within six months and therefore do not receive any price increases.

New customers over the year paid on average 2% more than move-ins for last year, and 4% less than customers moving out over the year. If we can improve our relative occupancy performance, we would expect to see this reverse and be an additional driver to revenue growth.

The average achieved net rent per sq ft increased by 3% compared to the prior year, with closing net rent up 3% compared to 31 March 2024. The table below shows the change in net rent per sq ft for the portfolio by average occupancy over the year (on a non-weighted basis). The analysis excludes our most recent store openings.

Marketing and operations

Our marketing strategy focuses on enhancing our market-leading brand awareness further and leveraging it to maximise the cost-efficient generation of enquiries, customer move-ins and user satisfaction across our digital platforms. Our strong brand, combined with continued digital investment and innovation, has enabled us to create a market-leading website which delivers over 90% of our enquiries.

Our latest YouGov survey (published in May 2024) confirmed the brand awareness of Big Yellow remained significantly ahead of other UK operators in the sector. The survey shows our unprompted brand awareness to be over four times higher than our nearest competitor across the UK.

The Big Yellow website enables users to browse different room sizes, obtain a price, reserve online and check-in online prior to arriving at the stores, which are automated in terms of access once a customer moves in.

We understand our web users often struggle to determine what size of storage they require. Our online size estimator features intuitive animations and information to guide people toward making the right choice. The online experience also allows customers to communicate with us in real-time via Live Chat, WhatsApp, or Facebook Messenger. Comprehensive online FAQs provide our users with another way to address questions they may have about the service without needing to call us directly.

This is all essential because approximately 60% of our new prospects have not used self storage before.

The seamless digital experience continues with our online check-in platform. This enables customers to complete the majority of their move-in process remotely. They can upload their photo and identity documents, sign the full customer licence, set up authorised persons, complete their storage inventory and establish a paperless Direct Debit - all accomplished remotely. This online check-in capability has significantly reduced the time our customers need to spend in our receptions when they move in.

We also provide the ability to purchase boxes and packing materials through our online BoxShop store. These items can be home delivered or made available through our Click and Collect service from stores, which represents 77% of BoxShop transactions. Packing material sales and other ancillary sales (excluding ELS) generated revenue of £5.1 million in the year (2024: £4.9 million).

Driving online traffic

Self storage is a consumer-facing business and the development of a strong and sustainable brand is multi-layered. It requires consistency in product, customer service and interaction at all touch points, particularly online.

Search engines are our most important acquisition tool, accounting for the majority of traffic to our website. Our focus on gaining a competitive advantage in search continues and our search engine optimisation ("SEO") efforts have helped us maintain high organic listings for popular generic and local self storage-related search terms. This, in turn, drives growth and cost efficiencies in acquiring new prospects.

Brand search terms are also a valuable driver of enquiries for Big Yellow and help improve the efficiency of our cost per enquiry. In the past year, 47% of all search engine paid clicks to our website originated from "Big Yellow" brand searches. This clearly indicates that the brand is important in driving higher levels of prospects and customer referrals, leading to improved operational efficiencies. We have demonstrated this through significant improvements in the performance of existing storage centres following their acquisition, re-branding and assimilation into our business.

Search engine marketing remains our largest source of paid web traffic. Ongoing website optimisation and an engaging user experience through our digital platforms help ensure we maximise the conversion of these web visits into enquiries and then customers.

Digital display advertising enables us to regionally target audiences in the market for self storage, raising consideration of the service and the Big Yellow brand through engaging creatives. This year, we have also started growing our strategic online partnerships with brands that have similar audiences to ours. This will help further drive efficiencies in our cost per customer.

Online customer reviews and social media

Supporting our values of putting the customer at the heart of our business, our online customer reviews generate real-time feedback from customers and provide positive word-of-mouth referrals to our website visitors. Through our Big Impressions customer feedback programme, we ask our new customers to rate our service. With the users' permission, we then publish these independent customer reviews on the Big Yellow website, which currently total over 56,000 averaging 4.8 out of 5.

The Big Impressions programme also generates customer feedback on their move-in and move-out experience. These customer reviews and mystery shop results are transparently accessible across the business and help reinforce our focus on outstanding customer service. Over the year, we have achieved an average net promoter score of 82.8, which is a very strong consumer-facing benchmark result.

We also gain real-time customer feedback from over 27,700 Google Reviews, averaging 4.7 out of 5. These help to enhance our visibility within local search listings, conveying trust in the Big Yellow brand. Additionally, we have over 4,750 reviews from the independent review site TrustPilot. These reviews average a 4.7 out of 5 star rating, labelled as "Excellent" on the TrustPilot ratings scale. We monitor our customer reviews and respond where necessary for customer service reasons or to manage our online reputation and improve our service offering.

Social media continues to complement our existing marketing channels. Big Yellow actively posts content across LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook to raise awareness of our services and ESG activities. These social channels are also used by customers to connect with us and are monitored in real-time, enabling us to respond promptly to any enquiries. The Big Yellow LinkedIn platform is specifically used to communicate company achievements, ESG initiatives and our company culture.

The Big Yellow YouTube channel allows web prospects to experience our stores online through our video guides to self storage.

We will continue to invest in improving the customer experience and user journey across all our digital marketing channels and in-store operations to achieve higher levels of automation and, consequently, efficiencies in the business.

AI

We continue to look for new opportunities to utilise AI and other emerging technology to drive efficiency and improve our business. We are currently leveraging a variety of AI tools to enhance our content creation process using tools such as Microsoft CoPilot, ChatGPT, and Canva to generate innovative ideas and content. These tools assist us in creating training modules, drafting policies and procedures, and developing engaging presentations and visuals. The integration of these AI tools has significantly streamlined our workflow and boosted our productivity.

We've also been leveraging rules-based data manipulation and automation techniques across various aspects of our operations, such as our dynamic pricing system, prospect management, online check-in, and the digital automation of all customer communications. Our access control reporting and alerts, based on significant data from our stores, have been instrumental in enhancing our store audit processes. Exception reporting is another area where we've seen great improvements. Other examples in marketing would be translation AI, optimisation of paid search and targeting of prospects. 

Although services provided by third parties, machine learning AI forms the backbone of our cybersecurity and defence mechanisms. It plays a crucial role in anti-malware efforts, firewalls, email management, vulnerability testing, and Security Information and Event Monitoring.

The above is by no means a complete summary of how AI is making a difference to our business, but should provide an insight and it is something that we will continue to invest in.

Cyber security and IT infrastructure

Cyber security and IT infrastructure are vital for the Group's strategy and operations. We have a robust framework covering risk, security, compliance, innovation, and efficiency. Over the past year, we've achieved significant results and progress, although as ever, we are proactive in seeking new opportunities and overcoming new challenges. We maintain our commitment to investing in and improving our capabilities, ensuring we maintain our competitive edge.

We regularly evaluate our cyber risk and security status with the help from both internal experts and external consultants. Mandatory Information Security and Data Protection training along with frequent tests, such as penetration testing and phishing simulations, help us ensure our systems and people are secure. This year, our systems underwent a comprehensive external audit and achieved IASME Cyber Assurance Levels 1 & 2, incorporating Cyber Essentials. Additionally, we have cyber insurance in place should a breach occur.

Our Data Compliance Officer oversees ongoing compliance with GDPR and PCI DSS, along with Business Continuity and Crisis Communication management. Our policies and procedures are regularly reviewed and benchmarked against industry best practice. Our Infrastructure and Development teams drive innovation and efficiencies throughout the Group.

Development pipeline

An important aspect of our external growth is the development of new stores, particularly in London, where there are very few existing assets suitable to be acquired.

Current development pipeline - with planning

Current development pipeline - without planning

PORTFOLIO SUMMARY

(1) We have changed the presentation of the portfolio summary this year, to show same stores and lease-up stores, rather than established and developing stores, and represented the comparative information accordingly. This new approach is consistent with other listed self storage businesses. The Big Yellow same stores are those that have reached 85% occupancy during a previous financial year. Should a store move categories in a year, we re-present the comparative information so the store is in the same category in both years. We opened a new freehold store at Slough Farnham Road during the year. After transferring its customers to the new Farnham Road store, we closed our leasehold Slough Whitby Road store during the year. The occupancy, net rent and capacity at the balance sheet date shows Slough Farnham Road within the same stores, as it was effectively a continuation of trade in a new location. The revenue and operating costs for the year for both stores are shown within same stores.

(2) See glossary in note 28.

(3) Rent paid for six short leasehold properties and five long leasehold properties

The table below reconciles Store EBITDA to gross profit in the statement of comprehensive income.

(4) See note 3 of the financial statements, reconciling item is non-storage income.

(5) See reconciliation in cost of sales section in Financial Review on page 16.

Reconciliation of APMs

The table below reconciles the reported figures above to the like-for-like metrics the Group reports:

Like-for-like revenue

Like-for-like store occupancy

(6) See glossary in note 28

FINANCIAL REVIEW

Revenue

Total revenue for the year was £204.5 million, an increase of £4.9 million (2%) from £199.6 million in the prior year. The increase in revenue for the year was impacted by lower rental income on our development sites as we obtained vacant possession; store revenue growth for the year was 3%. Like-for-like store revenue (see glossary in note 28) for the year was £200.7 million, an increase of 2% from the prior year (2024: £196.2 million). 

In the prior year, we reported that revenue growth was highest in London stores, with our south east commuter and regional stores delivering a lower run-rate of revenue growth. In the current year, we have seen this reverse, with our commuter and regional stores delivering higher revenue growth than our London stores.

Included in store revenue is other storage related income, from the sale of packing materials, insurance/enhanced liability service ("ELS"), and storage related charges. This amounted to £23.7 million in the year (2024: £22.6 million), an increase of 5%. This is ahead of the overall store revenue increase after a focus on improving the average level of ELS cover we sell to customers and improving the amount we charge for add-on services.

The other revenue earned by the Group is tenant income on sites where we have not started development. 

Operating costs

Cost of sales principally comprise the direct store operating costs, including store staff salaries, utilities, business rates, insurance, a full allocation of the central marketing budget and repairs and maintenance. 

We saw moderating operating cost increases in the second half of the financial year. The like-for-like increase in store operating costs in the first half of the year was 10%; for the second half this figure was 4%, with an overall increase of 7% for the year. We are pleased to have significantly reduced our operating cost inflation in the second half and are targeting to achieve further improvement in the year ahead.

The table below shows the breakdown of our store operating costs compared to the prior year:

Store operating costs have increased by £5.7 million (11%). The one-off items in the current year relate to rates rebates received in the year, with the prior year one-off items due to release of a provision for property rates from the 2017 rating list and a reassessment of the Group's bad debt provision. Store operating costs before these one-off items have increased by £4.4 million (8%) compared to the prior year. The additional operating expense from new stores accounted for £0.5 million in the year. The remaining increase is £3.9 million (7%), with commentary below:

- Cost of sales has reduced with slightly lower packing material sales in the year, and some savings on purchase costs.

- Staff costs have increased by £0.5 million (3%) with the salary review of on average 4.8% (including a higher increase to those at the lower end of the pay scale reflecting the rise in the national living wage). This increase has been partly offset by savings on headcount, as we drive efficiencies into the stores through automation.

- Our utilities expenditure continues to benefit from our investment in solar.

- Property rates have increased by £2.7 million (15%). The causes of this increase are the impact of new stores; the unwinding of taper relief from the introduction of the 2023 listing, and inflation applied to the multiplier which was set at 6.7%, based on the CPI print to September 2023. The rates payable for the next financial year will be based off the CPI to September 2024, which was 1.7%.

- Our marketing expense for the year was up 5%, mainly due to an increase in the PPC budget over the summer months to drive additional prospects in a softer demand environment. The total marketing spend represents 3.3% of revenue for the year.

- The repairs and maintenance expense has increased due to an additional investment in security in our stores, and an increase in solar panel maintenance costs, with higher numbers of stores now with solar PVs.

- Computer costs have increased by £0.2 million (16%), which reflects additional investment in systems to drive automation across the business.

- The Group's bad debt expense for the year was 0.2% of revenue, in line with the prior year. The Group has not seen any deterioration in its aged debtors' profile over recent months.

The table below reconciles store operating costs per the portfolio summary to cost of sales in the statement of comprehensive income:

The Group incurred various costs associated with the closure of its Slough leasehold store in the year, including the cost of transferring customers to our new freehold Slough Farnham Road store, and the strip-out of the building before returning it to the landlord. These costs totalled £0.7 million and have been excluded from the Group's adjusted profit for the year, as they are a one-off item. 

Store EBITDA

Store EBITDA for the year was £143.2 million, an increase of £0.2 million from £143.0 million for the prior year (see Portfolio Summary). The overall EBITDA margin for during the year was 70.5%, down from 72.5% in 2024, due to the increase in store operating costs discussed above.

All stores are currently trading profitably at the Store EBITDA level.

Administrative expenses

Administrative expenses in the statement of comprehensive income of £15.8 million were up £0.5 million (4%) compared to the prior year, slightly ahead of average inflation. 

Other income

In February 2022 the Group experienced a fire at our Cheadle store, which resulted in a total loss to the store. We had insurance cover in place for both the fit-out and four years loss of income. The Group settled the claim with the insurers in the year and the resulting loss of income insurance proceeds received during the financial year was £4.0 million, which is included in other income (2024: £1.8 million). There will be no further amounts received in respect of this claim in the year ending 31 March 2026.

In the prior year the Group received £4.7 million, being the insurance proceeds for the fit-out of the Cheadle store. This amount was shown as other income in 2024 but not included in the Group's adjusted earnings for that year, as it relates to capital expenditure.

Interest expense on bank borrowings

The gross bank interest expense for the year was £23.3 million, a decrease of £2.4 million from the prior year, due to lower average debt levels, following the placing in October 2023, partly offset by a slightly higher average cost of debt following the increase in interest rates in the prior year. The average cost of borrowing during the year was 5.7% compared to 5.5% in the prior year. Our average cost of debt has now started to fall following the reduction in interest rates from August 2024.

Capitalised interest has risen significantly as we build out the stores in our development pipeline, and was £7.9 million, up from £3.3 million in the prior year.

Total finance costs in the statement of comprehensive income reduced to £15.9 million from £22.9 million in the prior year, due to the reduction in interest payable and the increase in capitalised interest.

Profit before tax

The Group made a profit before tax in the year of £203.9 million, compared to a profit of £241.0 million in the prior year. After adjusting for the gain on the revaluation of investment properties and other matters shown in the table below, the Group made an adjusted profit before tax in the year of £115.6 million, up 8% from £107.3 million in 2024.

The adjustments made to the Group's profit before tax follow guidance issued by EPRA, with additional Company specific adjustments made to give readers a clearer underlying picture of the Group's performance. EPRA profit before tax is disclosed in note 10. 

The movement in the adjusted profit before tax from the prior year is illustrated in the table below:

Basic earnings per share for the year was 103.2p (2024: 127.1p) and diluted earnings per share was 102.8p (2024: 126.4p). Diluted adjusted earnings per share based on adjusted profit after tax was up 3% to 57.8p (2024: 55.9p) (see note 12). 

REIT status

The Group is a Real Estate Investment Trust ("REIT") and therefore benefits from a zero tax rate on its qualifying self storage earnings. The Group only pays tax on the profits attributable to our residual business, comprising primarily of the sale of packing materials and insurance.

REIT status gives the Group exemption from UK corporation tax on profits and gains from its qualifying portfolio of UK stores. Revaluation gains on developments and our existing open stores are exempt from corporation tax on chargeable gains, provided certain criteria are met.

The Group has a rigorous internal system in place for monitoring compliance with criteria set out in the REIT regulations. On a monthly basis, a report on compliance with these criteria is issued to the Executive. To date, the Group has complied with all REIT regulations, including forward looking tests. 

Taxation

There is a £2.5 million tax charge in the residual business for the year ended 31 March 2025 (2024: £2.3 million). The current year tax charge is partly offset in the income statement by an adjustment to the prior year tax estimate of £0.5 million (2024: prior year adjustment of £1.1 million). 

Dividends

The Board is recommending the payment of a final dividend of 23.8 pence per share in addition to the interim dividend of 22.6 pence, giving a total dividend for the year of 46.4 pence, an increase of 3% from the prior year. The Group's policy is to distribute a minimum of 80% of our adjusted earnings per share in each reporting period. 

REIT regulatory requirements determine the level of Property Income Distribution ("PID") payable by the Group. Based on the full year distributable reserves for PID purposes, a PID of 46.4p pence per share is payable (31 March 2024: 45.2 pence). The PID for the year to 31 March 2025 accounts for all of the declared dividend. The table below summarises the declared dividend for the year:

Subject to approval by shareholders at the Annual General Meeting to be held on 17 July 2025, the final dividend will be paid on 25 July 2025. The ex-div date is 3 July 2025 and the record date is 4 July 2025.

Cash flow growth

The Group is strongly cash generative and draws down from its longer term committed facilities as required to meet its obligations. The Group's cash flow from operating activities pre-working capital movements for the year was £111.9 million, an increase of 2% from £110.1 million in the prior year, with the growth in line with the increase in the Group's profitability in the year. These operating cash flows are after the ongoing maintenance costs of the stores, which were on average approximately £53,500 per store (2024: £49,000). 

The Group's net debt has increased slightly over the year to £388.7 million (March 2024: £385.4 million).

There are distortive working capital items in the prior year, and therefore the summary cash flow below sets out the free cash flow pre-working capital movements

The Group's interest cover for the period (expressed as the ratio of cash generated from operations pre-working capital movements against interest paid) was 6.1 times (2024: 5.6 times). This is calculated per below:

In the year capital expenditure outflows were £58.3 million, up from £30.9 million in the prior year. This capital expenditure was principally on the construction of new stores, and the continued roll-out of our solar retro-fit programme. We expect the amount of capital expenditure to increase next year, as we continue the build out of our pipeline. The disposal of non-current asset of £30.6 million relates to the proceeds from the sale of land adjacent to our Battersea store.

The cash flow after investing activities was a net inflow of £86.8 million, an increase of 3% from £84.0 million in the prior year.

Balance sheet

Property

The Group's open stores and stores under development owned at 31 March 2025, which are classified as investment properties, have all been valued individually by JLL. 

The external valuation has resulted in an investment property asset value of £2,992.7 million, comprising £2,784.6 million (93%) for the freehold (including nine long leaseholds) open stores, £22.9 million (1%) for the short leasehold open stores and £185.2 million (6%) for the freehold investment properties under construction.

Investment property

The open store portfolio has increased in value by £78.8 million (3%). This increase in value arises from improvements in the cap rates on certain stores, and growth in the projected cash flows. The weighted average exit capitalisation rate used in the valuations was 5.2% in the current year, compared to 5.4% in the prior year.

The table below provides a further breakdown of the open store valuations:

The total store valuation in this table differs to the balance sheet due to the non-self storage investment property that the Group owns, such as the Harrow Industrial Scheme. The net initial year one NOI yield is 5.0% (2024: 5.2%). Note 15 contains more detail on the assumptions underpinning the valuations. 

Investment property under construction

The Group spent £55.3 million on investment property under construction in the year, the majority of which was construction expenditure, with the only site acquisition in the year being Leamington Spa. Slough Farnham Road transferred to investment property during the year as the store opened. There was a revaluation surplus of £0.9 million on the investment property under construction in the year.

The projected net operating income of the increase in our total capacity of 1.0 million sq ft when stabilised is £32.5 million representing an approximate 15.3% return on the incremental capital deployed. On a proforma basis at stabilisation, the projected net operating income for the 13 new stores and one replacement store is £36.6 million, a return of approximately 8.7% on the total development cost of £422 million, including land already acquired.

Purchaser's cost adjustment

As in prior years, we have instructed an alternative valuation on our assets using a purchaser's cost assumption of 2.75% (see note 15 for further details) to be used in the calculation of our adjusted diluted net asset value. This Red Book valuation based on the special assumption of 2.75% purchaser's costs, results in a higher property valuation at 31 March 2025 of £3.11 billion (£116 million higher than the value recorded in the financial statements). This translates to 58.7 pence per share. This revised valuation translates into an adjusted net asset value per share of 1,355.6 pence (2024: 1,296.4 pence) after the dilutive effect of outstanding share options. 

Receivables

The Group's bad debt expense in the year represented 0.2% of revenue compared to 0.2% in the prior year, with 81% of our customer base paying by direct debit (2024: 80%).

Net asset value

The adjusted net asset value is 1,355.6 pence per share (see note 13), an increase of 5% compared to 1,296.4 pence per share at 31 March 2024. The table below reconciles the movement:

Borrowings

Our financing policy is to fund our current needs through a mix of debt, equity, and cash flow to allow us to build out, and add to, our development pipeline and achieve our strategic growth objectives, which we believe improve returns for shareholders. We aim to ensure that there are sufficient medium-term facilities in place to finance our committed development programme, secured against the freehold portfolio, with debt serviced by our strong operational cash flows. We maintain a keen watch on medium and long-term rates and the Group's policy in respect of interest rates is to maintain a balance between flexibility and hedging of interest rate risk.

The table below summarises the Group's debt facilities at 31 March 2025, with a current average cost of debt of 5.0% (March 2024: 5.4%).

In addition to the facilities above, the Group has a $225 million credit approved shelf facility with Pricoa Private Capital ("Pricoa"), to be drawn in fixed sterling notes. The Group can draw the debt in minimum tranches of £10 million over the next year with terms of between 7 and 15 years at short notice, typically 10 days. 

The Group's £300 million RCF has incorporated Sustainability-linked KPIs into the loan, which include annual pre-agreed targets and are based on:

- reductions in Scope 1 and 2 emissions;

- increase in solar generation capacity;

- total annual grants to Big Yellow Foundation charity partners; and

- the value of storage space provided free of charge to local charities in our stores.

Performance against the KPIs is measured annually, with a margin decrease or increase applied to the headline margin. We are pleased to report that the Group met all the KPIs in the first year of the loan and is therefore benefitting from a 5bps margin reduction on the RCF.

The Group was comfortably in compliance with its banking covenants at 31 March 2025. Further details of the Group's covenants are provided in note 19 of the accounts. The Group's key financial ratios are shown in the table below:

At 31 March 2025, the fair value on the Group's interest rate derivatives was a liability of £1.3 million. The Group does not hedge account its interest rate derivatives. The fair value movements are eliminated from adjusted profit before tax, adjusted earnings per share, and adjusted net assets per share. Cash deposits are only placed with approved financial institutions in accordance with the Group's Treasury policy.

Share capital

The share capital of the Company totalled £19.7 million at 31 March 2025 (2024: £19.6 million), consisting of 196,714,696 ordinary shares of 10p each (2024: 196,195,287 shares). 0.5 million shares were issued for the exercise of options during the year at an average exercise price of £12.60 (2024: 0.3 million shares at an average price of £10.77).

The Group holds 0.9 million shares within an Employee Benefit Trust ("EBT"). These shares are shown as a debit in reserves and are not included in calculating net asset value per share.

96.9 million shares were traded in the market during the year ended 31 March 2025 (2024: 111.2 million). The average mid-market price of shares traded during the year was £11.09 with a high of £13.36 and a low of £8.71.

Principal risks and uncertainties

The Directors have carried out a robust assessment of the emerging and principal risks facing the Group, including those that would threaten its business model, future performance, solvency, or liquidity. The Group maintains a low appetite to risk, in line with our strategic objectives of providing a low volatility, high distribution business. 

The section below details the emerging and principal risks and uncertainties that are considered to have the most material impact on the Group's strategy and objectives. These key risks are monitored on an ongoing basis by the Executive Directors and considered fully by the Board in its annual risk review.

Internal audit

The Group employs a Head of Store Compliance responsible for reviewing store operational and financial controls. He reports to the Chief Financial Officer and meets with the Audit Committee at least once a year. This role is supported by three other team members, enabling additional work and support to be carried out across the Group's store portfolio. The Store Compliance team visits each operational store at least once every nine months to carry out a detailed store audit. These audits are unannounced, and the Store Compliance team carry out detailed tests on financial management, administrative standards, and operational standards within the stores. Part of the store staff's bonus is based on the scores they achieve in these audits. The results of each audit are reviewed by the Chief Financial Officer, the Chief Operating Officer, the Financial Controller, and the Head of Store Operations. This is the equivalent of an internal audit function for the Group's store operations.

For the key business cycles conducted at the Group's head office, external consultants are used to review the Group's controls on a rotational basis. The consultants produce a report with recommendations which is discussed with management and reviewed by the Audit Committee. The cycles covered by this activity include construction expenditure, treasury, taxation, and facilities management. 

During the year, the Group implemented new software to enable us to better capture risks and controls and implement a formal testing cycle ahead of the new Corporate Governance Code. With the assistance of external consultants, we performed a detailed walk through of key processes. We have developed a detailed Risk and Controls Matrix in these areas and documented the workflows. These are embedded in the software, and with reference to best practice will highlight any risks we can further develop controls around, or any controls that could be improved. 

With the combination of the store internal audit process, the external assessment of the key business cycles, and the new software to manage and report on risks, the Audit Committee considers that this provides a robust internal audit assessment for the Group. 

GOING CONCERN

A review of the Group's business activities, together with the factors likely to affect its future development, performance and position are set out in the Strategic Report. The financial position of the Group, its cash flows, liquidity position and borrowing facilities are shown in the balance sheet, cash flow statement and accompanying notes to the financial statements. Further information concerning the Group's objectives, policies, and processes for managing its capital; its financial risk management objectives; details of its financial instruments and hedging activities; and its exposures to credit risk and liquidity risk can be found in this Report and in the notes to the financial statements.

At 31 March 2025 the Group had available liquidity of approximately £184 million, from a combination of cash and undrawn bank debt facilities. The Group additionally has a $225 million credit approved shelf facility with Pricoa Private Capital to be drawn in fixed sterling notes. The Group can draw the debt in minimum tranches of £10 million with terms of between 7 and 15 years at short notice, typically 10 days. The Group is cash generative and for the year ended 31 March 2025, had cash flow from operating activities (after net finance costs and pre-working capital movements) of £111.9 million, with capital commitments at the balance sheet date of £77.5 million. The Group has net current liabilities at the balance sheet date and draws on its Revolving Credit Facility (current headroom of £175 million) as required, as it is inefficient for the Group to hold significant amounts of cash.

The Directors have prepared cash flow forecasts for a period of 18 months from the date of approval of these financial statements, considering the Group's operating plan and budget for the year ending 31 March 2026 and projections contained in the longer-term business plan which cover the 18 month going concern assessment period. After reviewing these projected cash flows together with the Group's and Company's cash balances, borrowing facilities and covenant requirements, and potential property valuation movements over that period, the Directors believe that, taking account of severe but plausible downsides, the Group and Company will have sufficient funds to meet their liabilities as they fall due for that period.

In making their assessment, the Directors have carefully considered the outlook for the Group's trading performance and cash flows as a result of the current economic environment, considering the trading performance of the Group over the recent dislocations in the global economy from Covid-19, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the impact of rising inflation. The Directors have also considered the performance of the business during the Global Financial Crisis. The Directors modelled several different scenarios, including material reductions in the Group's occupancy rates and property valuations, and assessed the impact of these scenarios against the Group's liquidity and the Group's banking covenants. The scenarios considered did not lead to breaching any of the banking covenants, and the Group retained sufficient liquidity to meet its financial obligations as they fall due. 

Consequently, the Directors continue to adopt the going concern basis in preparing the Group and Company financial statements.

VIABILITY STATEMENT

The Directors have assessed the Group's viability over a four-year period to March 2029. This period is selected based on the Group's long-term strategic plan to give greater certainty over the forecasting assumptions used. As in the assessment of going concern, the Directors have modelled several different scenarios on the Group's future prospects.

In making their assessment, the Directors took account of the Group's current financial position, including committed capital expenditure. The Directors carried out a robust assessment of the emerging and principal risks and uncertainties facing the business, their potential financial impact on the Group's cash flows, REIT compliance and financial covenants and the likely effectiveness of the mitigating options detailed. The Directors have assumed that funding for the business in the form of equity, bank debt and debt provided by insurance companies will be available in all reasonably plausible market conditions. Whilst the eventual impact of the current economic environment on the Group is uncertain, and may not be known for some time, the Group has a highly cash generative business, good liquidity and has proved resilient in its trading in recent years.

Based on this assessment the Directors have a reasonable expectation that the Company and the Group will be able to continue operating and meeting all their liabilities as they fall due to March 2029.

Consolidated Statement of Comprehensive Income

Year ended 31 March 2025

Adjusted earnings per share are shown in Note 12.

All items in the statement of comprehensive income relate to continuing operations.

Consolidated Balance Sheet

31 March 2025

The financial statements were approved by the Board of Directors and authorised for issue on 19 May 2025. They were signed on its behalf by

Jim Gibson, Director John Trotman, Director

Company Registration No. 03625199

* two balances have been netted down in the prior year balance sheet, see notes 16 and 17.

Consolidated Statement of Changes in Equity

Year ended 31 March 2025

The other non-distributable reserve arose in the year ended 31 March 2015 following the placing of 14.35 million ordinary shares.

The issue of share capital is net of expenses.

Year ended 31 March 2024

Consolidated Cash Flow Statement

Year ended 31 March 2025

Notes to the financial statements

Year ended 31 March 2025

1. GENERAL INFORMATION

Big Yellow Group PLC is a Company incorporated in the United Kingdom under the Companies Act 2006, with registration number 03625199, and limited by shares. The address of the registered office is 2 The Deans, Bridge Road, Bagshot, Surrey, GU19 5AT. The nature of the Group's operations and its principal activities are set out in note 4 and in the Strategic Report.

2. SIGNIFICANT ACCOUNTING POLICIES

Basis of preparation of financial statements

The financial information set out above does not constitute the Group and Company's statutory accounts for the years ended 31 March 2025 or 2024 but is derived from those accounts. Statutory accounts for 2024 have been delivered to the registrar of companies, and those for 2025 will be delivered in due course. The auditor has reported on those accounts; their reports were (i) unqualified, (ii) did not include a reference to any matters to which the auditor drew attention by way of emphasis without qualifying their report and (iii) did not contain a statement under section 498 (2) or (3) of the Companies Act 2006.

The Group's financial statements have been prepared in accordance with UK-adopted international accounting standards ("IFRS Standards") and in relation to the parent company financial statements have been properly prepared in accordance with UK Generally Accepted Accounting Practice (including FRS 101). The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006. The Group has applied all relevant accounting standards which have been endorsed by the International Accounting Standards Board and have been applied consistently year on year.

The Group uses a number of APMs to monitor the performance of the business. Adjusted profit before tax and adjusted earnings per share are the Group's primary profit measures and reflect underlying profit by excluding capital and non-recurring items such as revaluation movements, gains or losses on the disposal of properties and the fair value movement of interest derivatives in accordance with EPRA guidelines. In addition, the Group adjusts for items such as the write off of acquisition costs, and fair value movements on the stepped acquisition of associates. These adjusted measures should not be considered in isolation from, or as substitutes for, or superior to the financial measures prepared in accordance with IFRS.

3. REVENUE

Analysis of the Group's operating revenue can be found below and in the Portfolio Summary on page 13.

Non-storage income derives principally from rental income earned from tenants of properties awaiting development.

The Group has also earned other income of £4.0 million in the year (2024: £6.5 million). This relates to insurance proceeds for loss of income following the destruction of the Group's Cheadle store by fire in 2022, with the claim having been settled with the insurers in the current year (2024: £1.8 million). This has been included in the Group's adjusted profit before tax for the year as it is current period earnings, and the income the insurance proceeds are replacing would have also been included in the Group's adjusted profit before tax for the year. The balance of £4.7 million in the prior year is the insurance proceeds for the fit-out of the Cheadle store. 

The Group has considered IFRS 17 in respect of our sale of the Enhanced Liability Service, and concluded any impact from IFRS 17 would be immaterial.

4. SEGMENTAL INFORMATION

IFRS 8 requires operating segments to be identified on the basis of internal reports about components of the Group that are regularly reviewed by the Chief Executive to allocate resources to the segments and to assess their performance. Given the nature of the Group's business, there is one segment, which is the provision of self storage and related services.

Revenue represents amounts derived from the provision of self storage and related services which fall within the Group's ordinary activities after deduction of trade discounts and value added tax. The Group's non-current assets, revenue and profit before tax are attributable to one activity, the provision of self storage and related services. These all arise in the United Kingdom in the current year and prior year.

5. PROFIT FOR THE YEAR

a) Profit for the year has been arrived at after charging/(crediting):

b) Analysis of auditor's remuneration:

6. EMPLOYEE COSTS

The average monthly number of full-time equivalent employees (including Executive Directors) was:

At 31 March 2025 the total number of Group employees was 485 (2024: 503). The average number of employees for the year was 496 (2024: 504).

7. INVESTMENT INCOME

8. FINANCE COSTS

9. TAXATION

As a REIT, the Group does not pay UK corporation tax on the profits and gains from its qualifying rental business in the UK provided that it meets certain conditions. Non-qualifying profits and gains of the Group are subject to corporation tax as normal. The Group monitors its compliance with the REIT conditions. There have been no breaches of the conditions to date.

A reconciliation of the tax charge is shown below:

The prior year adjustment arose due to prudent assumptions made during the assessment of the corporation tax provision for the prior year accounts. On completion of the tax computations for the year, the actual charge for the year ended 31 March 2024 was £0.5 million lower than had been provided in the accounts (2024: £1.1 million lower).

At 31 March 2025 the Group has unutilised tax losses from the non-REIT taxable business of £34.2 million (2024: £33.1 million) available for offset against certain types of future taxable profits. All losses can be carried forward indefinitely. The losses have not been recognised as a deferred tax asset, as there is no certainty over their future use.

10. ADJUSTED PROFIT

Adjusted profit before tax which excludes gains and losses on the revaluation of investment properties, changes in fair value of interest rate derivatives, net gains and losses on disposal of investment property, and material non-recurring items of income and expenditure have been disclosed as, in the Board's view, this provides a clearer understanding of the Group's underlying trading performance. 

11. DIVIDENDS

Subject to approval by shareholders at the Annual General Meeting to be held on 17 July 2025, the final dividend will be paid on 25 July 2025. The ex-div date is 3 July 2025 and the record date is 4 July 2025.

The Property Income Distribution ("PID") payable for the year is 46.4 pence per share (2024: 45.2 pence per share). 

12. EARNINGS PER SHARE

The calculation of basic earnings is based on profit after tax for the year. The weighted average number of shares used to calculate diluted earnings per share has been adjusted for the conversion of share options.

EPRA earnings and adjusted earnings per ordinary share have been disclosed to give a clearer understanding of the Group's underlying trading performance.

13. NET ASSETS PER SHARE

EPRA's Best Practices Recommendations guidelines for Net Asset Value (NAV) metrics are EPRA Net Tangible Assets (NTA), EPRA Net Reinstatement Value (NRV) and EPRA Net Disposal Value (NDV).

EPRA NTA is considered to be most consistent with the nature of Big Yellow's business which provides sustainable long-term progressive returns. EPRA NTA is shown in the table below. This measure is further adjusted by the adjustment the Group makes for purchaser's costs, which is the Group's Adjusted Net Asset Value (or Adjusted NAV).

Net assets per share are equity shareholders' funds divided by the number of shares at the year end. The shares currently held in the Group's Employee Benefit Trust are excluded from both net assets and the number of shares. Adjusted net assets per share include the effect of those shares issuable under employee share option schemes and the effect of alternative valuation methodology assumptions (see note 15).

14. NON-CURRENT ASSETS

a) Investment property, investment property under construction and right-of-use assets

The right-of-use assets represent the present value of minimum lease payments for leasehold properties that meet the definition of IAS 40 and are accounted for as investment properties - see note 21 for further details of the obligations under lease liabilities. The fair value of the leasehold properties (including long leaseholds), on which the Group pays rent, of £72.3 million (2024: £78.4 million) is included within the investment property total.

The transfer on opening during the year is our Slough Farnham Road store moving from investment property under construction to investment property. 

The disposal in the prior year is the proceeds from a land swap transaction at our Kings Cross store realising the Group £5.4 million. The disposal of investment property in the current year was the sale of land adjacent to our Battersea store for £30.9 million for residential development. The gain on disposal of non-current assets is shown in the comprehensive statement of income and has been excluded from the Group's adjusted profit before tax for the year.

The income from self storage accommodation earned by the Group from its investment property is disclosed in note 3. Direct operating expenses, which are all applied to generating rental income, arising on the investment property in the year are disclosed in the Portfolio Summary on page 13. Included within additions is £7.9 million of capitalised interest (2024: £3.3 million), calculated at the Group's average borrowing cost for the year of 5.7%. 96 of the Group's investment properties are pledged as security for loans, with a total external value of £2.39 billion.

The difference between additions to investment property above and the purchase of non-current assets in the cash flow statement is principally due to capitalised interest of £7,898,000 and payables relating to our construction programme at the balance sheet date of £4,104,000.

b) Plant, equipment, and owner-occupied property

c) Intangible assets

The intangible asset relates to the Big Yellow brand, which was acquired through the acquisition of Big Yellow Self Storage Company Limited in 1999. The carrying value remains unchanged from the prior year as there is considered to be no impairment in the value of the asset. The asset has an indefinite life and is tested annually for impairment or more frequently if there are indicators of impairment.

d) Investment

The Group has a £0.6 million investment in Doncaster Security Operations Centre Limited, a company which provides out-of-hours monitoring and alarm receiving services, including for the Group's stores. The investment is carried at cost and tested annually for impairment.

15. VALUATION OF INVESTMENT PROPERTY