LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Self-storage group Big Yellow delivered a cautious outlook on trading on Friday as it reported a decline in occupancy levels over the third quarter, and said it plans to cut jobs as it deals with higher National Insurance payments to employees from April.
Big Yellow estimates that it will have to pay out £0.5m more each year due to the changes in NI contributions announced in October's autumn budget.

"We are mitigating this increase in full through additional reductions in store headcount - a dividend of continued investment in automation," the company said.

Chief executive Jim Gibson said that events things like policy making "are not making the job of running businesses any easier".

Big Yellow said in a trading update that occupancy declined by 180,000 square foot year-on-year across its 109 stores in the three months to 31 December.

However, a 3% increase in the average achieved rent per square foot to £34.87 helped revenues rise 2% on last year to £51.4m.

Total revenues over the first nine months of the fiscal year now total £154.4m, up 3% on the year before, while adjusted earnings per share growth has turned positive at 1.5% over the year-to-date, following a 3% decline in the first half.

"As we are now close to the end of this financial year, we can be confident in seeing some further modest eps growth improvement for the full year," the company said.

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