store first

dunstonh

in regards to the fca or fsa as people still refer to them as , it is their job to notify people if they are not regulating a company .

No its not.

it does not mean anything , just that the company operates in a market they do not regulate

It does mean something. It means the the adviser/investment/provider is regulated and gives consumer protection in case of failure. For example, FSCS protection. Whereas unregulated schemes do not get that. You are at risk of total loss of your money and the word "guarantee" would not be allowed if store first were a regulated company as it is not guaranteed.

i am happy with my returns and the service i have received from store first

So were investors with bernie madoff until it collapsed. Concerns were first raised in 1999 but it didnt collapse until 2008. That isnt to say this scheme is anything like that or will suffer the same fate. However, without consumer protections, you are at risk of total loss.

do some research instead of shouting your mouth and putting doubts in investors minds .

Investors need to be on guard. It is unregulated, isnt designed for the retail consumer market, lacks consumer protections, doesnt operate in a regulated area, illiquid and has risk of capital loss. That doesnt mean it may not be suitable for some for a small amount of their holdings (high risk unregulated areas are not considered unsuitable for around 5% of your investable assets). However, too often you see people putting in virtually their full amount into schemes like this and that is foolish.

jamesd

Look at the director history and negative total assets. It's no problem to make sales for a few years and use those to make payments for a while. Then cease trading once the sales can no longer finance the payouts. While the business is still operating it can generate genuine positive comments from the early entrants.

This sort of thing is very high risk and not the sort of thing to use for much money, if any.

BR54

good safe investment
I think you may live to regret saying that

and now have a 2 year fixed return of 10%

It's not fixed, it's projected. And, I was under the beleif that they havent been trading long enough to get the third year in .
i would still be the owner of the store pod which would still have commercial value .
But if no-one wanted it, you would be stuck with it, value or no value
and store first in year 5 through the buy back scheme will buy the store pod back from me at the price paid regardless of commercial market conditions
Not necessarily. The buy back means they can buy back at any time in the NEXT five years, so effectively could be 10 years before they buy it back. Given the trading history of previous companies, do you think they will be in business in 10 years?

ALZIE_2

I have held this Investment for the last 2 years and have returns of £00000, YES TOTAL ZERO. It is a scam so please stay well away. I invested £144,000 which has made me nothing. I have been trying to sell the Store Pods for the last year, without success, and after 2 years all are still vacant.:(

golmaal

Hi receiving regular payments so far.

£2363 in 9 months

matt5791

Just a word generally about the concept of self storage.

I owned a whole facility between 2002 and 2006, a business I started from scratch. In the early part of that decade there was a lot of razmataz going on about how Self Storage was the latest imported American concept business that was going to take over the UK (and the rest of Europe) like Coke or Microsoft. What at lot of people overlooked (myself included) was the fact that we have two major barriers to the success of self storage on this side of the Atlantic:

1. The price of land is very high
2. We have a lot less land

The result of this is the cost of self storage is very expensive in the UK and Europe, which means that by far the majority of your customers store only by absolute necessity - eg they are moving house, there is a gap between the move, and they have no choice.

By contrast, in the US, long term storers are almost the norm, with many people retaining a storage unit almost permanently in order to keep stuff they don't want clogging up their garage or attic. Yes, you do get customers like this in the UK and you do get some business customers who are long term, but it's nothing like it is in the US, because it's just too costly to use self storage like that over here.

So the market for self storage in Europe will never, ever, reach the saturation, or anywhere near the saturation, of the USA and it will always remain a a very fickle business. But there are a lot of people in the UK who think it still has a lot of mileage, a lot of growth to be had - I really don't think it does and I think there will be casualties - or rather, more casualties: there have already been a few of these.

Anyone who has had any sort of return from the Store First scheme, is, I think very lucky. I know that it took us ages to fill the units in our facility and this was normal in the industry - the aim was always a cumulative fill rate of 1000 sf.ft a month. But this was very difficult to achieve - and we had very little competition in those days, we were in a city of 300,000 people with only two other facilities (there are about 6 now). We were very well branded and marketed and our facility was all new fitted with the latest entry systems etc. Much of the 30,000 sq.ft. was vacant for much of the time. It's entirely conceivable that a unit in a store first facility could see no lettings in months or even years.

Any potential investor should also consider what would happen in the following scenario: A flash flood, or some other disaster, wrecks the facility. This happened to a facility in Coventry and that was the end of the business because it was impossible to re-establish it after 200 customers had all their belongings destroyed - it's not a business you can relocate so the only option is closure. Yes, there may be an insurance payout for the fixtures and fittings and possibly business interruption for 6-12 months, but it's the end of the business. Yes it is a rare occurrence, but it has happened more than once in the industry.

In my opinion, as a business, self storage is a flawed concept. I would not go back into the industry and I would not advise anyone to invest in it.

am-i-a-victim

I made one purchase 12 months ago (just under £4000) I have been pitched roughly 50 times on this since and it's starting to scare me, i've received no returns just excuses and demands for more money to buy on other sites from about 5 different companies all selling on behalf of storefirst....... is storefirst a scam? they're telling me to move my pension into a sipp and buy even more? can someone give me some advice please

am-i-a-victim

Store first has been written about by Tony Hetherington over the weekend, I can't seem to paste the link but if you look on Daily Mail website you should find it

dunstonh

am-i-a-victim wrote: »

Store first has been written about by Tony Hetherington over the weekend, I can't seem to paste the link but if you look on Daily Mail website you should find it

A good article by the Daily Mail. Not something you hear me say often. Comments section is full of responses from Toby Whittaker.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/experts/article-2512352/TONY-HETHERINGTON

Jarrode

Sorry to state the obvious but of course you get the first two years rent as they keep that back (probably from your own investment).I would reiterate the original comments about getting professional advice before considering moving a final salary pension scheme as these can be very valuable benefits.

If this is such a good investment why don't they borrow against their own assets and own the thing 100% themselves??