PSA, §1A diff (2016 → 2017)

ITEM 1A. Risk Factors In addition to the other information in our Annual Report on Form 10-K, you should consider the risks described below that we believe may be material to investors in evaluating the Company. This section contains forward-looking statements, and in considering these statements, you should refer to the qualifications and limitations on our forward-looking statements that are described in Item 1, “Business.” We have significant exposure to real estate risk. Since our business consists primarily of acquiring and operating real estate, we are subject to the risks related to the ownership and operation of real estate that could result in reduced revenues, increased expenses, increased capital expenditures, or increased borrowings, which could negatively impact our operating results, cash flow available for distribution or reinvestment, and our stock price: Natural disasters or terrorist attacks could cause damage to our facilities, resulting in increased costs and reduced revenues. Natural disasters, such as earthquakes, hurricanes and floods, or terrorist attacks could cause significant damage and require significant repair costs, and make facilities temporarily uninhabitable, reducing our revenues. Damage and business interruption losses could exceed the aggregate limits of our insurance coverage. In addition, because we self-insure a portion of our risks, losses below a certain level may not be covered by insurance. See Note 13 to our December 31, 2017 financial statements for a description of the risks of losses that are not covered by third-party insurance contracts. We may not have sufficient insurance coverage for losses caused by a terrorist attack, or such insurance may not be maintained, available or cost-effective. In addition, significant natural disasters, terrorist attacks, threats of future terrorist attacks, or resulting wider armed conflicts could have negative impacts on the U.S. economy, reducing storage demand. Operating costs, including property taxes, could increase. We could be subject to increases in insurance premiums, property or other taxes, repair and maintenance costs, payroll, utility costs, workers compensation, and other operating expenses due to various factors such as inflation, labor shortages, commodity and energy price increases, weather, increases to minimum wage rates, changes to governmental safety and real estate use limitations, as well as other governmental actions. Our property tax expense, which totaled approximately $236.4 million during the year ended December 31, 2017, generally depends upon the assessed value of our real estate facilities as determined by assessors and government agencies, and accordingly could be subject to substantial increases if such agencies changed their valuation approaches or opinions or if new laws are enacted. The acquisition of existing properties is subject to risks that may adversely affect our growth and financial results. We have acquired self-storage facilities from third parties in the past, and we expect to continue to do so in the future. We face significant competition for suitable acquisition properties from other real estate investors. As a result, we may be unable to acquire additional properties we desire or the purchase price for desirable properties may be significantly increased. Failures or unexpected circumstances in integrating newly acquired properties into our operations or circumstances we did not detect during due diligence, such as environmental matters, needed repairs or deferred maintenance, or the effects of increased property tax following reassessment of a newly-acquired property, as well as the general risks of real estate investment, could jeopardize realization of the anticipated earnings from an acquisition. Development of self-storage facilities can subject us to risks. At December 31, 2017, we have a pipeline of development projects totaling $614 million (subject to contingencies), and we expect to continue to seek additional development projects. There are significant risks involved in developing self-storage facilities, such as delays or cost increases due to changes in or failure to meet government or regulatory requirements, failure of revenue to meet our underwriting estimates, weather issues, unforeseen site conditions, or personnel problems. Self-storage space is generally not pre-leased, and rent-up of newly developed space can be delayed or ongoing cash flow yields can be reduced due to competition, reductions in storage demand, or other factors. There is significant competition among self-storage operators and from other storage alternatives. Our self-storage facilities generate most of our revenue and earnings. Competition in the local market areas in which many of our properties are located is significant and has affected our occupancy levels, rental rates and operating expenses. Development of self-storage facilities has increased in recent years, which has intensified competition and will continue to do so as newly developed facilities are opened. Development of self-storage facilities by other operators could continue to increase, due to increases in availability of funds for investment or other reasons, and further intensify competition. We may incur significant liabilities from environmental contamination or moisture infiltration. Existing or future laws impose or may impose liability on us to clean up environmental contamination on or around properties that we currently or previously owned or operated, even if we were not responsible for or aware of the environmental contamination or even if such environmental contamination occurred prior to our involvement with the property. We have conducted preliminary environmental assessments on most of our properties, which have not identified material liabilities. These assessments, commonly referred to as “Phase 1 Environmental Assessments,” include an investigation (excluding soil or groundwater sampling or analysis) and a review of publicly available information regarding the site and other nearby properties. We are also subject to potential liability relating to moisture infiltration, which can result in mold or other damage to our or our customers’ property, as well as potential health concerns. When we receive a complaint or otherwise become aware that an air quality concern exists, we implement corrective measures and seek to work proactively with our customers to resolve issues, subject to our contractual limitations on liability for such claims. We are not aware of any environmental contamination or moisture infiltration related liabilities that could be material to our overall business, financial condition, or results of operation. However, we may not have detected all material liabilities, we could acquire properties with material undetected liabilities, or new conditions could arise or develop at our properties, any of which would result in a cash settlement or adversely affect our ability to sell, lease, operate, or encumber affected facilities. Economic conditions can adversely affect our business, financial condition, growth and access to capital. Our revenues and operating cash flow can be negatively impacted by reductions in employment and population levels, household and disposable income, and other general economic factors that lead to a reduction in demand for rental space in each of the markets in which we operate. Our ability to raise capital to fund our activities may be adversely affected by challenging market conditions. If we were unable to raise capital at reasonable rates, prospective earnings growth through expanding our asset base could be limited. We have exposure to European operations through our ownership in Shurgard Europe. We own a 49% equity interest in Shurgard Europe, with our investment having a $324 million book value at December 31, 2017, and $25.9 million in equity in earnings in 2017. As a result, we are exposed to additional risks related to international operations that may adversely impact our business and financial results, including the following: · Currency risks: Currency fluctuations can impact the fair value of our equity investment in Shurgard Europe, as well as future repatriation of cash. · Legislative, tax, and regulatory risks: We are subject to complex foreign laws and regulations related to permitting and land use, the environment, labor, and other areas, as well as income, property, sales, value added and employment tax laws. These laws can be difficult to apply or interpret and can vary in each country or locality, and are subject to unexpected changes in their form and application due to regional, national, or local political uncertainty and other factors. Such changes, or Shurgard’s failure to comply with these laws, could subject it to penalties or other sanctions, adverse changes in business processes, as well as potentially adverse income tax, property tax, or other tax burdens. · Impediments to capital repatriation could negatively impact the realization of our investment in Shurgard Europe: Laws in Europe and the U.S. may create, impede or increase our cost to repatriate capital or earnings from Shurgard Europe. · Risks of collective bargaining and intellectual property: Collective bargaining, which is prevalent in certain areas in Europe, could negatively impact Shurgard Europe’s labor costs or operations. Many of Shurgard Europe’s employees participate in various national unions. · Potential operating and individual country risks: Economic slowdowns or extraordinary political or social change in the countries in which it operates have posed, and could continue to pose, challenges or result in future reductions of Shurgard Europe’s operating cash flows. · Impediments of Shurgard Europe’s joint venture structure: Shurgard Europe’s strategic decisions, involving activities such as borrowing money, capital contributions, raising capital from third parties, as well as selling or acquiring significant assets, require the consent of our joint venture partner. As a result, Shurgard Europe may be precluded from taking advantage of opportunities that we would find attractive but that we may not be able to pursue economically outside the joint venture. In addition, our 49% equity investment may not be easily sold or readily accepted as collateral by potential lenders to Public Storage due to the joint venture structure. The Hughes Family could control us and take actions adverse to other shareholders. At December 31, 2017, B. Wayne Hughes, our former Chairman and his family, which includes his daughter, Tamara Hughes Gustavson and his son, B. Wayne Hughes, Jr., who are both members of our Board of Trustees (collectively, the “Hughes Family”), owned approximately 14.3% of our aggregate outstanding common shares. Our declaration of trust permits the Hughes Family to own up to 35.66% of our outstanding common shares while it generally restricts the ownership by other persons and entities to 3% of our outstanding common shares. Consequently, the Hughes Family may significantly influence matters submitted to a vote of our shareholders, including electing trustees, amending our organizational documents, dissolving and approving other extraordinary transactions, such as a takeover attempt, resulting in an outcome that may not be favorable to other shareholders. Takeover attempts or changes in control could be thwarted, even if beneficial to shareholders. In certain circumstances, shareholders might desire a change of control or acquisition of us, in order to realize a premium over the then-prevailing market price of our shares or for other reasons. However, the following could prevent, deter, or delay such a transaction: · Provisions of Maryland law may impose limitations that may make it more difficult for a third party to negotiate or effect a business combination transaction or control share acquisition with Public Storage. Currently, the Board has opted not to subject the Company to these provisions of Maryland law, but it could choose to do so in the future without shareholder approval. · To protect against the loss of our REIT status due to concentration of ownership levels, our declaration of trust generally limits the ability of a person, other than the Hughes Family or “designated investment entities” (each as defined in our declaration of trust), to own, actually or constructively, more than 3% of our outstanding common shares or 9.9% of the outstanding shares of any class or series of preferred or equity shares. Our Board may grant a specific exemption. These limits could discourage, delay or prevent a transaction involving a change in control of the Company not approved by our Board. · Similarly, current provisions of our declaration of trust and powers of our Board could have the same effect, including (1) limitations on removal of trustees, (2) restrictions on the acquisition of our shares of beneficial interest, (3) the power to issue additional common shares, preferred shares or equity shares on terms approved by the Board without obtaining shareholder approval, (4) the advance notice provisions of our bylaws and (5) the Board’s ability under Maryland law, without obtaining shareholder approval, to implement takeover defenses that we may not yet have and to take, or refrain from taking, other actions that could have the effect of delaying, deterring or preventing a transaction or a change in control. If we failed to qualify as a REIT, we would have to pay substantial income taxes. REITs are subject to a range of complex organizational and operational requirements. A qualifying REIT does not generally incur federal income tax on its net income that is distributed to its shareholders. Our REIT status is also dependent upon the ongoing REIT qualification of PSB as a result of our substantial ownership interest in it. We believe we have qualified as a REIT and we intend to continue to maintain our REIT status. There can be no assurance that we qualify or will continue to qualify as a REIT, because of the highly technical nature of the REIT rules, the ongoing importance of factual determinations, the possibility of unidentified issues in prior periods or changes in our circumstances, as well as share ownership limits in our articles of incorporation that do not necessarily ensure that our shareholder base is sufficiently diverse for us to qualify as a REIT. For any year we fail to qualify as a REIT, unless certain relief provisions apply (the granting of such relief could nonetheless result in significant excise or penalty taxes), we would not be allowed a deduction for dividends paid, we would be subject to corporate tax on our taxable income, and generally we would not be allowed to elect REIT status until the fifth year after such a disqualification. Any taxes, interest, and penalties incurred would reduce our cash available for distributions to shareholders and could negatively affect our stock price. However, for years in which we failed to qualify as a REIT, we would not be subject to REIT rules which require us to distribute substantially all of our taxable income to our shareholders. Holders of our preferred shares have dividend, liquidation and other rights that are senior to the rights of the holders of shares of our common stock. Holders of our preferred shares are entitled to cumulative dividends before any dividends may be declared or set aside on our common stock. Upon liquidation, holders of our preferred shares will receive a liquidation preference of $25,000 per share (or $25.00 per depositary share) plus any accrued and unpaid distributions before any payment is made to the common shareholders. These preferences may limit the amount received by our common shareholders either from ongoing distributions or upon liquidation. In addition, our preferred shareholders have the right to elect two additional directors to our Board whenever dividends are in arrears in an aggregate amount equivalent to six or more quarterly dividends, whether or not consecutive. Recent and potential changes in tax laws could negatively impact us. The United States Treasury Department and Congress frequently review federal income tax legislation, regulations and other guidance. We cannot predict whether, when or to what extent new federal tax laws, regulations, interpretations or rulings will be adopted. Any legislative action may prospectively or retroactively modify our tax treatment and, therefore, may adversely affect taxation of us or our shareholders. In particular, the legislation passed last December, commonly referred to as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the “TCJA”), which was signed into law on December 22, 2017 and which generally takes effect for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2018 (subject to certain exceptions), makes many significant changes to the federal income tax laws that will profoundly impact the taxation of individuals and corporations (both regular C corporations as well as corporations that have elected REIT status). A number of changes that affect non-corporate taxpayers will expire at the end of 2025 unless Congress acts to extend them. These changes will impact us and our shareholders in various ways, some of which are potentially adverse compared to prior law. To date, the IRS has issued only limited guidance with respect to certain of the new provisions, and there are numerous interpretive issues that will require guidance. It is highly likely that technical corrections legislation will be needed to clarify certain aspects of the new law and give proper effect to Congressional intent. There can be no assurance, however, that technical corrections needed to prevent unintended or unforeseen tax consequences will be enacted by Congress in the near future or that any corrections made may not have further adverse, unintended or unforeseen tax consequences.  Changes made by the TCJA will limit our ability to deduct compensation in excess of $1 million paid to certain senior executives. This could require us to increase distributions to our shareholders in order to avoid paying tax and to maintain our REIT status.  We may pay some taxes, reducing cash available for shareholders. Even if we qualify as a REIT for federal income tax purposes, we may be subject to some federal, foreign, state and local taxes on our income and property. Since January 1, 2001, certain consolidated corporate subsidiaries of the Company have elected to be treated as “taxable REIT subsidiaries” for federal income tax purposes, and are taxable as regular corporations and subject to certain limitations on intercompany transactions. If tax authorities determine that amounts paid by our taxable REIT subsidiaries to us are not reasonable compared to similar arrangements among unrelated parties, we could be subject to a 100% penalty tax on the excess payments, and ongoing intercompany arrangements could have to change, resulting in higher ongoing tax payments. To the extent the Company is required to pay federal, foreign, state or local taxes or federal penalty taxes due to existing laws or changes thereto, we will have less cash available for distribution to shareholders. In addition, certain local and state governments have imposed taxes on self-storage rent. While in most cases those taxes are paid by our customers, they increase the cost of self-storage rental to our customers and can negatively impact our revenues. Other local and state governments may impose self-storage rent taxes in the future. We are exposed to ongoing litigation and other legal and regulatory actions, which may divert management’s time and attention, require us to pay damages and expenses or restrict the operation of our business. We have over 5,500 employees and 1.5 million customers at any point of time, and we conduct business at facilities with 159 million net rentable square feet of storage space. As a result, we are subject to the risk of legal claims and proceedings (including class actions) and regulatory enforcement actions in the ordinary course of our business and otherwise, and we could incur significant liabilities and substantial legal fees as a result of these actions. Resolution of these claims and actions may divert time and attention by our management and could involve payment of damages or expenses by us, all of which may be significant. In addition, any such resolution could involve our agreement to terms that restrict the operation of our business. The results of legal proceedings cannot be predicted with certainty. We cannot guarantee losses incurred in connection with any current or future legal or regulatory proceedings or actions will not exceed any provisions we may have set aside in respect of such proceedings or actions or will not exceed any available insurance coverage. The impact of any such legal claims, proceedings, and regulatory enforcement actions and could negatively impact our operating results, cash flow available for distribution or reinvestment, and or the price of our common shares. We are heavily dependent on computer systems, telecommunications and the Internet to process transactions, summarize results and manage our business. Security breaches or a failure of such networks, systems or technology could adversely impact our business, customer, and employee relationships. We are heavily dependent upon automated information technology and Internet commerce, with more than half of our new customers coming from the telephone or over the Internet, and the nature of our business involves the receipt and retention of personal information about our customers. We also maintain personally identifiable information about our employees. We centrally manage significant components of our operations with our computer systems, including our financial information, and we also rely extensively on third-party vendors to retain data, process transactions and provide other systems services. These systems are subject to damage or interruption from power outages, computer and telecommunications failures, computer worms, viruses and other destructive or disruptive security breaches and catastrophic events. As a result, our operations could be severely impacted by a natural disaster, terrorist attack or other circumstance that results in a significant outage of our systems or those of our third party providers, despite our use of back up and redundancy measures. Our or our customers’ or employees’ confidential information could be compromised or misappropriated, due to a breach of our network security. Such cybersecurity and data security breaches as well as systems disruptions and shutdowns could result in additional costs to repair or replace such networks or information systems and possible legal liability, including government enforcement actions and private litigation. In addition, our customers could lose confidence in our ability to protect their personal information, which could cause them to discontinue leasing our self-storage facilities. Such events could lead to lost future revenues and adversely affect our results of operations and could result in remedial and other costs, fines or lawsuits, which could be in excess of any available insurance that we have procured. We are subject to laws and governmental regulations and actions that require us to incur compliance costs affecting our operating results and financial condition. Our business is subject to regulation under a wide variety of U.S. federal, state and local laws, regulations and policies including those imposed by the SEC, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and NYSE, as well as applicable local, state, and national labor laws. Although we have policies and procedures designed to comply with applicable laws and regulations, failure to comply with the various laws and regulations may result in civil and criminal liability, fines and penalties, increased costs of compliance, restatement of our financial statements and could also affect the marketability of our real estate facilities. In response to current economic conditions or the current political environment or otherwise, laws and regulations could be implemented or changed in ways that adversely affect our operating results and financial condition, such as legislation that could facilitate union activity or that would otherwise increase operating costs. All of our properties must comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act and with related regulations and similar state law requirements, as well as various real estate and zoning laws and regulations, which are subject to change and could become more costly to comply with in the future. Compliance with these requirements can require us to incur significant expenditures, which would reduce cash otherwise available for distribution to shareholders. A failure to comply with these laws could lead to fines or possible awards of damages to individuals affected by the non-compliance. Failure to comply with these requirements could also affect the marketability of our real estate facilities. Our tenant reinsurance business is subject to governmental regulation which could reduce our profitability or limit our growth. We hold Limited Lines Self-Service Storage Insurance Agent licenses from a number of individual state Departments of Insurance and are subject to state governmental regulation and supervision. Our continued ability to maintain these Limited Lines Self-Service Storage Insurance Agent licenses in the jurisdictions in which we are licensed depends on our compliance with related rules and regulations. The regulatory authorities in each jurisdiction generally have broad discretion to grant, renew and revoke licenses and approvals, to promulgate, interpret, and implement regulations, and to evaluate compliance with regulations through periodic examinations, audits and investigations of the affairs of insurance agents. As a result of regulatory or private action in any jurisdiction, we may be temporarily or permanently suspended from continuing some or all of our reinsurance activities, or otherwise fined or penalized or suffer an adverse judgment, which could reduce our net income. ITEM 1B.