$115 million deal puts Manatee County's Hide-Away Storage into national trust

MANATEE -- A $115 million transaction has put one of the largest locally owned self-storage companies into the hands of a publicly traded national real estate trust.

Announced Tuesday, the deal puts Whitfield-based Hide-Away Storage Services into a growing storage portfolio controlled by Denver-based National Storage Affiliates. Under the terms of the agreement, no cash will change hands. But an estimated 20 partners in the 38-year-old Hide-Away will receive compensation in the form of NSA and Hide-Away stock.

Hide-Away, which operates 16 storage facilities spanning more than 1 million square feet in Manatee and Sarasota counties, St. Petersburg, Fort Myers and Naples, will remain locally managed. Steve Wilson, the company's founder and biggest shareholder, said joining the NSA portfolio gives the Hide-Away partners greater liquidity and provides a pool of capital it can use to grow the brand.

Wilson said he expects some partners may use that liquidity to cash in their ownership stake in the company. But Wilson, who along with his wife, Maureen, still owns 100 percent of the management company that operates Hide-Away, said he wants to spend the next couple of years adding self-storage facilities to the Hide-Away brand.

"Rather than retiring, we are going to be managing much more aggressively," he said. "I think our timing is very appropriate to move into some acquisitions and more development before this market gets overbuilt."

Partners in the business will be

compensated with about 80 percent NSA stock and about 20 percent Hide-Away stock for the real estate transfer, Wilson said. About $60 million of the transaction will be in the form of stock in NSA's operating partnership, according to a release from the company. NSA will also take on about $42 million in Hide-Away's mortgage and other debt.

Hide-Away is the seventh "participating regional partner" NSA has acquired since its formation in 2012. The REIT operates 280 self-storage properties in 16 states, according to its website. According to the 2016 Self-Storage Almanac, NSA is the sixth largest owner and operator of self-storage facilities among public and private companies in the U.S.

Marti Dowling, NSA's director of investor relations, said buying Hide-Away's facilities will give her company its first properties on the west coast of Florida. She characterized NSA as being unique among several national real estate investment trusts that invest in storage properties in that sellers are able to stay in the business.

"When any company sells to one of the larger public REITs these days, the only option they have is to sell out and retire or continue operating their business," she said.

Wilson said Hide-Away's 50 employees will see little change in the company's day-to-day operations. He met with employees Tuesday afternoon to brief them on details of the transaction.

Negotiations for the deal started in September. Wilson said those discussions came out of a longstanding relationship he has with principals in that company, including its CEO, Arlen Nordhagen.

Hide-Away operates its own brand-name properties as well as a smaller Xpress storage brand.

Matt M. Johnson, Herald business reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7027 or on Twitter @MattAtBradenton.

This story was originally published February 9, 2016 at 11:05 PM with the headline "$115 million deal puts Manatee County's Hide-Away Storage into national trust ."