Member Article

Kangaroo Holdings Signals Market with Appointment of New Chairman

The board of Kangaroo Holdings Ltd, the owner of the Kangaroo Self Storage and North West-based Smart Storage, has appointed Scott Christie as non-executive Chairman.

Scott Christie is former non-executive and non-executive chairman of easyHotel, the super budget hotel group that operates a portfolio of 39 hotels. During his time on the Board, the business first raised growth funding, listing on Aim and completed two successful funding rounds after floatation to support the successful expansion of the business in the UK and Europe. He is also chairman of CSN Care Group, a leading provider of domiciliary care services across the UK, created through an MBO he led from the Carewatch Group in 2019.

Kangaroo’s Chief Executive Officer, Chris Stevens said; “I’m delighted to welcome Scott to Kangaroo in what are challenging but opportunistic times. He joins us at an exciting period for our business as we continue to innovate and make self-storage more accessible and more widely understood.

“His experience, particularly at easyHotel, will provide additional insight as we implement our business strategy and develop new channels to not only improve customer service but reach a new type of online savvy self-storage customer.

“Together with his focus on best-in-class customer service, Scott’s experience of the transactions market is in line with our commitment to build our business on strong service foundations and to deliver growth via the acquisition of complementary businesses, strategic organic growth, joint ventures and management contract work.”

In Spring 2018 Kangaroo Self Storage acquired Smart Storage, the North West’s leading independent self-storage business. The acquisition saw the company triple in size and the combined portfolio sees the business own and operate nine stores with a maximum lettable area of 442,000 sq ft.

Scott Christie said, “I am looking forward to working with the team at Kangaroo and Smart and building strong relationships with the board. With growing awareness in and rising demand for self-storage in the UK this is an exciting time to be joining the sector.

“I look forward to bringing my expertise and knowledge of the challenges of a multi-site trading business in order to create market differentiation and to build shareholder value.”

Headquartered in East Lothian, Kangaroo Self Storage operates three freehold stores across Scotland in Dundee, Glasgow and Edinburgh. Trading as Smart Storage in the North West of England the business also has a mixture of freehold and leasehold stores in prominent sites in Warrington, Widnes, Liverpool, Preston, Bromborough and Altrincham. This year the business marks its fifteenth anniversary.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Matt Hartley .