Utah's Extra Space Storage to sell 7 million shares of stock

Extra Space Storage Inc., a Salt Lake City-based real estate investment company, says it plans to sell 7 million of its shares in a secondary offering of its stock.

The company said earlier this week that it struck a deal with Prudential Real Estate Investors to purchase its 94.9 percent interest in a joint venture that owns 36 self-storage properties in 18 states.

Extra Space already owns the remaining 5.1 percent interest.

Its shares, which are listed on the New York Stock Exchange, fell 11 cents to close at $28.28 on Wednesday.

The Utah company said it expects to use a portion of the proceeds from its stock offering to pay Prudential $298 million for interest in the joint venture, of which around $160 million is to be paid in cash at closing. It will also be taking over an existing $145 million loan from Prudential.

Citigroup will be acting as the underwriter for the offering.

Extra Space said the joint venture properties contain 2.5 million square feet of rentable space in 23,000 units and serve a customer base of around 20,000 tenants. It said as of March 31, 87.8 percent of the total square feet available for lease at the properties was occupied.