Scottish entrepreneur Alister Jack is looking for additional self-storage sites after purchasing 12 U.K. facilities for his Alligator Self Storage chain. The properties were acquired from investment bank Macquarie Group Australia in a £20 million deal backed by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The acquisition brings the total number of Alligator sites to 17. Jack is seeking additional expansion opportunities, possibly two or three more in the next year, he said.
The newly purchased facilities, previously named Storage King, will be rebranded under the Alligator name and operated out of Edinburgh, Scotland, where Jack resides. The sites are in Dumfries and Edinburgh, with a string of sites in England.
Jack is the previous owner and founder of Aardvark and Armadillo Self-Storage chains, which he sold in 2002 and 2007 respectively. Jack also owns sister company Edinburgh Self Storage, which he purchased in February 2006. He entered the self-storage marketing 15 years ago.
According to Jack, there is still plenty of self-storage opportunity in the United Kingdom, as the per-capita square footage of U.K. \storage is only a quarter of that in the United States.