U-Store-It Trust down after missing Q3 earnings estimates

U-Store-It Trust (NYSE: YSI) shares are down after the real estate investment trust and operator of self-storage facilities recorded a third-quarter net loss of $4.1 million, or $0.07 per share, worse than analyst estimates of $0.01 per share and compared with a loss of $2 million, or $0.03 per share, a year earlier.

“We continued to be aggressive to gain physical occupancy. During the quarter, we made significant investments through the use of aggressive discounting, increased our marketing expenditures, and improved the physical appearance of our facilities through both capital investment and increased spending on repair and maintenance,” CEO Dean Jernigan said in a statement. “In the near term, those investments produced strong, same-store occupancy gains and we expect to continue this strategy into 2008. In the long term, our higher occupancies should result in improved top-line and bottom-line growth.”

Quarterly revenue was slightly higher at $58.3 million, above Wall Street projections of $57 million and compared with $56 million during the same period of 2006.

For the fourth quarter, the Cleveland-based firm expects a loss in the range of $0.08 to $0.06 per share, compared with analyst estimates of flat earnings.

In today’s trading, YSI shares were down 11.2%, or $1.34, at $10.62. Over the last 52 weeks, shares have ranged from $10.45 to $23.61.

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