Janus International Group, a leading maker of doors and access controls for self-storage facilities and other structures, is joining the small club of publicly traded companies in the self-storage industry. Membership in that club should help propel Janus toward its target of $1 billion in annual sales.
Annual sales at Janus reached roughly $550 million in 2020. Ramey Jackson, CEO of Janus, wants to see that number climb to $1 billion by 2023.
“We have a clear path of organic growth to achieve about $740 million of that, and if you combine our organic growth and M&A, I’m optimistic we’ll achieve our goal of a billion,” Jackson said during a Dec. 22 conference call with investors.
“Blank check” IPO
Three days before Christmas, Janus and its majority owner, Clearlake Capital Group, announced Janus plans to go public in a deal valuing the company at $1.9 billion. Rather than a traditional IPO, Janus and Clearlake are relying on what’s known as a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) to enable trading of Janus’ shares on the New York Stock Exchange.
The SPAC is Chatham, NJ-based Juniper Industrial Holdings, a so-called “blank check” company formed solely to acquire industrial businesses. The founders of Juniper are former Honeywell executives Roger Fradin and Brian Cook.
Once the deal is completed at a price of nearly $600 million, Janus’ stock will trade under the ticker symbol JBI. Santa Monica, CA-based Clearlake will remain the largest shareholder, and Jackson will remain CEO of Temple, GA-based Janus.
“Going public has been a part of the long-term vision for Janus, and our business model has always focused on growth,” said Jackson, noting an annual compounded organic growth rate of 10% since 2016.
“Perfect match”
Jackson said Janus’ status as a public company will enable further investment in technology and expansion of its international footprint. Furthermore, being a public company will allow Janus to grow its presence in the industrial and commercial markets, he said, and to fully roll out its Nokē “smart lock” technology to Janus’ entire self-storage customer base. Also, Janus will be able to better capitalize on acquisition opportunities like its 2018 purchase of Nokē. Janus projects 60% sales growth from Nokē through 2023.
On the Dec. 22 conference call, Fradin, chairman of Juniper, labeled his company and Janus a “perfect match.”
“Janus has an unrivaled market position as a resilient and high-growth building products company. They have a strong track record of above-market organic growth, with industry-leading margins and a rapidly increasing client base as the sole acquirer of choice in a fragmented market,” Fradin said.
Public profile
Janus will become one of a handful of publicly held companies in the self-storage sector. Five major publicly traded REITs operate in the self-storage industry: Public Storage, Extra Space Storage, CubeSmart, Life Storage and National Storage Affiliates Trust.
In November, Dallas, TX-based investment firm NexPoint Advisors wrapped up its $900 million acquisition of publicly held Jernigan Capital, a Memphis, TN-based provider debt and equity capital for self-storage developers, owners and operators. The combined company now operates as NexPoint Storage Partners.
