Share count
55Mpeak FY2022
← All companies ← SM Manual SMBC → ← SLG REITs — Specialty & Diversified SPG →
SMA, SmartStop Self Storage REIT Inc.
Based on the Inside Self Storage Top-Operators List ranking for 2025, and after accounting for recent market transactions, we are the 10th largest owner and operator of self storage properties in the United States based on rentable square footage.
Effective October 1, 2025, we acquired Argus Professional Storage Management, LLC ("Argus"), a third-party manager of self storage properties (the "Third Party Platform Acquisition").
As such, as of December 31, 2025, we managed an additional 221 of such properties, consisting of more than approximately 98,000 units and 15.9 million rentable square feet (the "Third Party Platform").
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$281M
+18.6% YoY · 18% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $294M 5-yr avg $227M
Revenue $78M +19.7% vs yr-ago qtr
Operating margin 20.7% yr-ago 26.3%
Net income $10M yr-ago ($5M)
Net margin 13.0% yr-ago −8.3%
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- What it is
- Revenue is Self Storage (89%) and Managed Platform (11%).
- What moves the needle
- Occupancy, rents, and the cost of debt. Read on funds from operations and net asset value, because GAAP depreciation distorts the earnings, and a property downturn meets a balance sheet built on leverage. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
- Is it a good business?
- Funds from operations per share do not form a clean trend in the record. The dividend takes 102% of FFO, more than it earns. Debt is 45% of assets, moderate for a REIT. The quality and location of the properties, the lease terms and occupancy, and the cost of the debt are what the 10-K settles, and no single ratio captures them.
Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.
Where the money comes from
read the 10-K →The biggest segment, Self Storage, is also where the profit is made: 89% of revenue and 92% of segment operating profit.
Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025
Operating profit same segments
- Self Storage89%$250M92% of profit
- Managed Platform11%$32M8% of profit
From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.
The record
Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.
The record, 2016–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2016’16 | 2017’17 | 2018’18 | 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | |||||||||||
| $45M | $76M | $80M | $110M | $124M | $169M | $213M | $233M | $237M | $281M | $294M | RevenueRevenue |
| ($26M) | ($15M) | ($4M) | ($25M) | ($54M) | ($29M) | $6M | ($3M) | ($18M) | ($9M) | $9M | Net incomeNet inc. |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||||
| ($4M) | $19M | $19M | $12M | ($12M) | $24M | $71M | $57M | $38M | $64M | $84M | Funds from operationsFFO |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||||
| — | 90% | 92% | 147% | — | 110% | 70% | 71% | 99% | 117% | 102% | Dividend payout (FFO)Payout |
| $727M | $830M | $820M | $1.2B | $1.2B | $1.6B | $1.9B | $1.9B | $2.1B | $2.4B | $2.4B | Real estate (gross)RE gross |
| $753M | $817M | $796M | $1.3B | $1.3B | $1.6B | $1.9B | $1.9B | $2.0B | $2.4B | $2.4B | Total assetsAssets |
| 43% | 49% | 51% | 54% | 56% | 54% | 55% | 57% | 65% | 45% | 45% | Debt / assetsDebt/assets |
| $321M | $397M | $406M | $713M | $718M | $874M | $1.1B | $1.1B | $1.3B | $1.1B | $1.1B | Total debtDebt |
| $306M | $389M | $396M | $650M | $645M | $837M | $1.0B | $1.0B | $1.3B | $1.0B | $1.1B | Net debt / (cash)Net debt |
| -2.0× | 0.2× | 0.9× | 0.3× | -0.6× | 0.5× | 1.6× | 1.1× | 1.0× | 1.0× | 1.1× | Interest coverageInt. cov. |
| $411M | $379M | $345M | $274M | $183M | $343M | $467M | $404M | $326M | $1.2B | $1.2B | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| Per share | |||||||||||
| — | — | — | — | 59.6M | 79.4M | 92.1M | — | 0K | 55.4M | 55.4M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| — | — | — | — | $-0.21 | $0.30 | $0.77 | — | — | $1.16 | $1.52 | FFO / shareFFO/sh |
| — | — | — | — | $0.32 | $0.33 | $0.54 | — | — | $1.35 | $1.55 | Dividends / shareDiv/sh |
| — | — | — | — | $3.07 | $4.31 | $5.08 | — | — | $21.32 | $21.10 | Book value / shareBVPS |
The diluted share count moved ×1/1.66 into 2025 — shares retired, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
| 9-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +19.5%/yr (5-yr) | +19.5%/yr |
| Dividends / share | +33.3%/yr (5-yr) | +33.3%/yr |
| Book value / share | +47.3%/yr (5-yr) | +47.3%/yr |
The record, charted
FY2016–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
Revenue
$281Mlow FY2016
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →
Is it a good business?
- about $1.16 per shareNet income ($9M) + depreciation $73M − gains on sale $284K
What this means
GAAP net income with property depreciation added back, because the buildings a REIT charges against earnings usually hold or grow their value. This, not net income, is what a REIT is actually priced on. It is an approximation here: where a filing reports gains on property sales, we remove them, the way the NAREIT definition does.
- Not covered by FFODividends $75M ÷ FFO $64MIndustry peers: median 66%
What this means
A REIT must distribute most of its taxable income, so a high payout is normal and the question is whether FFO covers it. Above 100%, the trust is funding the dividend with debt or asset sales, and a cut usually follows.
Is it sound?
- Debt / assets 45%ModerateTotal debt $1.1B ÷ assets $2.4BIndustry peers: median 43%
What this means
Every REIT runs on leverage; how much is the question. Heavy debt is what turns a property downturn into a wipeout, as 2008 showed, so a conservative balance sheet is part of the moat here, not a drag on it.
- Adequate(operating income + depreciation) ÷ interest $60MIndustry peers: median 5.2×
What this means
How many times the property cash earnings cover the interest bill. Comfortable coverage is what lets a REIT refinance through a tight credit market instead of being forced to sell into one.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Low contestabilityThe moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.
In its own filing Framed as a capability
The filing positions AI as something the company uses, not something it fears.
“Further, new technologies such as artificial intelligence may be more capable at evading any safeguard measures that we have adopted.”
AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat, and the company is using it that way.
Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.
All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.
Management, ownership & pay
read the proxy →From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.
| Fiscal year | Chief executive | Pay, as filed | “Actually paid” | Net income |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | H. Michael Schwartz | $3.5M | $5.4M | ($29M) |
| 2021 | Michael S. McClure | $536k | $832k | ($29M) |
| 2022 | H. Michael Schwartz | $3.5M | $3.8M | $6M |
| 2023 | H. Michael Schwartz | $4.7M | $6.1M | ($3M) |
| 2024 | H. Michael Schwartz | $5.1M | $5.2M | ($18M) |
| 2025 | H. Michael Schwartz | $4.8M | $110k | ($9M) |
Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Net income is the whole business's, as filed, for the same fiscal years.
- Insider ownership5.7%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
- Stock-based compensation$17M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 6% of revenue, equal to 28% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.
Peers, Self-storage REITs
The same industry, side by side on the REIT lens. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.
| Company | Revenue | FFO margin | FFO / assets | Payout (FFO) | Debt / assets |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSAPublic Storage | $4.8B | 71% | 16.9% | 33% | 39% |
| EXRExtra Space Storage | $3.4B | 52% | 7.7% | 71% | 39% |
| CUBECubeSmart | $1.1B | 51% | 8.1% | 73% | 47% |
| NSANational Storage Affiliates | $753M | 35% | 4.6% | 61% | 54% |
| SMASmartStop Self Storage REIT Inc. | $281M | 19% | 2.1% | 96% | 54% |
| Group median | — | 51% | 7.7% | 71% | 47% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
price / FFOA REIT is priced on a multiple of its funds from operations (FFO), the cash it earns once the depreciation on its buildings is added back. Type today’s price; we show the multiple you would pay and the income and growth it implies.
$
The assumptions
The justified multiple is 1 ÷ (required return − growth), a perpetuity on FFO. At an 8% required return and 3% growth, a REIT is worth about 20× FFO.
Enter a price above to run it.
Price / FFO—
Justified by growth—
Dividend yield—
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
FFO about $1.52 per share on 55M shares. The dials set the multiple they justify; your price sets the multiple you are paying. FFO here adds back depreciation and removes property-sale gains, the NAREIT method; it does not net out maintenance capex (AFFO), occupancy or lease terms, which the 10-K does.
Cite: Owner Scorecard, "SmartStop Self Storage REIT Inc. (SMA), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/SMA, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← SM its page in the Manual SMBC →
Industry order: ← SLG the REITs — Specialty & Diversified chapter SPG →