Analyst Note
| Yousuf Hafuda |Public Storage reported decent fourth-quarter results with the coronavirus crisis counterintuitively boosting demand for the firm’s self-storage facilities. This development is in contrast with concerns at the early part of the crisis as the industry was being adversely affected by muted move-ins and higher customer delinquencies. During the fourth quarter, core funds from operations, or FFOs, were $2.93 per share, a 3.2% increase compared with $2.84 during the fourth quarter of 2019. Same-store net operating income, or NOI, was $479 million, a slight 1.3% year-over-year increase compared with $472 million for the fourth quarter of 2019. Full-year 2020 results were less positive due to a tumultuous year, with core FFOs decreasing 1.3%, while same-store NOI decreased by 2.1%. With these results providing few surprises, we are maintaining our $198 per-share fair value estimate for no-moat Public Storage.