

he massive amounts of capital that poured into the self-storage industry in the last 10 years has led to mega-deals like the $12 billion merger of REITs Extra Space Storage and Life Storage, as well as smaller transactions between mid-size companies and independents. Now, the same type of consolidation is happening with self-storage adjacent businesses such as construction companies and software providers. Although this is not new, it appears to be happening with more frequency, so what does it mean? MSM caught up with leaders from Trachte Building Systems, MakoRabco, and Storable to find out what is driving these mergers and acquisitions.
MakoRabco, of course, had already been through an acquisition of its own. In 2021, Mako Steel acquired Rabco Enterprises. Angie Guerin, executive vice president of MakoRabco, recalls spending a lot of money hiring an advertising thinktank to come up with a new company name, only to arrive at the obvious conclusion. “Probably one of the greatest stories of my professional career was the unveiling of our new name, MakoRabco,” Guerin says with a laugh.
With the Trachte acquisition, there would be no name changes. “We’re not shying away from the fact that we’re under the Trachte umbrella, but keeping our respective brands was important,” says Guerin, who explains that retaining the brand names demonstrates that both Trachte and MakoRabco will continue to do what they do best rather than joining forces to do everything the same way. “Trachte bought MakoRabco for our unique value, not to have us just do what they do. If that’s what they’d wanted, they would probably have just opened up an operation out west or in Florida.”
Brad Relford, president and CEO of Trachte Building Systems, concurs. “The MakoRabco brand carries a lot of cachet in the industry,” he says, while noting that Trachte, MakoRabco, and Trac-Rite [Trachte’s door division] all have different value propositions and customer bases to cater to. He also mentions that MakoRabco is a very asset-light business, focusing on design, engineering, and construction services for self-storage, while Trachte is asset-heavy, focusing on manufacturing in addition to design and erection services. For both of these reasons, he feels maintaining their name was the best go-to-market strategy. “It was better than pushing the two brands together. It also makes the integration process much easier because you’re not forcing it.”
Relford doesn’t think it’s surprising that self-storage-related companies are merging and consolidating as the industry matures and becomes more sophisticated. He would know; Trachte built its first mini-warehouse in 1974 but has been around since 1901, when tinsmiths George and Arthur Trachte began bending metal for buildings. “No one paid much attention to self-storage for years, but now institutional investors are getting into the sector and many more are eyeing the space very closely,” he says. “On top of that, companies want more economies of scale, more market share, and synergies with other businesses. I think those are the things really driving consolidation through mergers and acquisitions.”
Guerin says that Mako Steel saw the writing on the wall in 2019, when self-storage really began getting the attention of Wall Street. “The investment money was about to roll in, so that’s when we transacted to private equity [New State Capital Partners]. We were one of the first notable companies to do that.”
Jim Reinhart, CEO of MakoRabco, thinks the acquisition was beneficial because both brands have strength in different geographic areas and a very high repeat business rate. “There isn’t too much overlap in our customer bases,” he says. “By coming together, we’re widening our footprint and customers benefit from it too, getting a much broader solution set: design service plus additional control over the manufacturing process, timelines, and so on.”
Reinhart says that customer response has been overwhelmingly positive. “Angie and I fielded a lot of phone calls after the announcement, but no one said a thing other than, ‘Oh, well that makes sense. Glad to see you two get together. Now how do we do more business?’”
He goes on to describe the Trachte and MakoRabco marriage as the embodiment of a strategic acquisition. Although Trachte had been looking to acquire a complementary company that could leverage its manufacturing capabilities for a while, Relford says luck did have a hand in it. “An investment banker Trachte works with had a past relationship with the private equity owners of MakoRabco. An unexpected connection, but conversations stemmed from there, and eventually everything just fell into place. We consummated the deal on March 21, and it’s been smooth sailing since then.”
“The new branding scheme brings everything under the Storable roof, yet addresses each vertical separately,” says Gordon, who proceeds to list them out.
- Storable Easy, formerly Easy Storage Solutions
- Storable Edge, formerly StorEdge
- Sitelink by Storable, formerly SiteLink
- Access
- Collections and CRM (formerly CallPotential)
- Insurance, which includes StorSmart and Bader Insurance
- Marketplace (SpareFoot)
- Websites and Marketing Services
- Auctions, which includes StorageTreasures.com
- Storable Marine, formerly Molo and Stellar
- Storable RV & Camping, formerly Newbook
It may seem like a full plate, but Gordon says it’s designed to take work off customers’ plates. He believes consolidation will simplify Storable customers’ daily operations, making them more efficient and ultimately more profitable. “That’s our philosophy,” he says. “To bring that vision to life, we acquired the leading software companies in the space. Now, customers have a consolidated, all-in-one technology package that lets them do everything they need in one place.”
The argument could be made that just like financial portfolio diversification, businesses need to diversify vendors to protect from potential risks like service disruptions, price hikes, and souring relationships. When asked if customers have ever expressed hesitation about putting all their eggs in one basket, Gordon smiles. “I’ve been asked that question before, and the answer is simple: We don’t lock anyone into a closed system. We have literally hundreds of different vendors who integrate into our API.”
As well-recognized as Storable is, the company probably could force customers to buy all its products. So why doesn’t it? “We support and encourage integrations with third-party tools,” says Gordon. “And I think a lot less people would use our software if we didn’t. We believe that in order for us to win, we need to have choice and our customers need to have choice.” Of course, Gordon isn’t going to argue with a customer if they want to use the full end-to-end suite. “It’s up to us to prove our ancillary products are the best ones so that our customers want to pick them. But they’re never going to have to pick them.”
With so many brands under one roof, Gordon admits there have been some challenges integrating products. “I wish I could say that it’s always been unicorns and rainbows,” he says with a laugh, “but there have been challenges along the way. What I can say with confidence is that, comparing Storable now to Storable 2018, we are way more mature about how we do everything from evaluating companies and integrating them into our platform. We are very prudent about how we set ourselves and our portfolio up for success in the Storable ecosystem.”
Guerin believes we’ll continue to see more of it. “I think the industry has come into its own,” she says. “We were all like kids in the earlier days. I mean, we had the Mak the Shark logo and all sorts of Mak tradeshow swag that we thought was super cute. But we’ve grown up, and we decided it was time for our logo to grow up too, so Mak just became a nice, clean fin.”
Gordon agrees. “I’m a lot more confident about our ability to do things right and do them well based on all the experience we’ve gathered and all that we’ve learned over the last seven years,” he says. “We’re proud of the progress we’ve made and the company we’ve built, and we’re excited about the value we’ve been able to bring to our customers. I still feel like we’re at the tip of the iceberg in terms of the efficiency and capabilities that we’re able to bring to the table.”
It seems that just as the self-storage industry has matured, so have the companies leading the way within it.