funding "all but vanished". A book by Public Storage Inc. said the Tax Reform Act of 1986 reduced the tax benefits of RELPs and was followed by "a tough time for real estate companies." In December 1990, five of its partnerships were converted to Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) in December. It also began consolidating its partnerships and acquiring many of the companies in which it held an interest. Storage Equities was founded by Public Storage in 1980 to purchase self-storage facilities. It was one of 17 self-storage REITs that Public Storage held an interest in. Between 1992 and 1995, Storage Equities paid Public Storage $31 million in management and consulting fees. In 1995, Public Storage and its subsidiaries were merged with its self-storage REIT, Storage Equities Inc., and re-structured as a single REIT called Public Storage Inc. One analyst said the acquisition capitalized on conflict of interest concerns, while Hughes said the merger was set up to alleviate them. In 1995, the company spun-off its box, locks, and packing and moving supplies business into the PS Orangeco subsidiary; Public Storage said this was done to avoid the risk of losing the company's tax-free REIT status if too large a portion of the company's business is no longer related to real estate. This frustrated institutional investors that can only invest in real estate companies and could no longer invest in the new non-real estate subsidiaries. By 1998, Public Storage had $141 million in quarterly revenues, $2 billion in assets and 1,200 facilities in 38 states. Later that year, Public Storage acquired a competing storage company called Storage Trust Realty in a $600 million transaction. Recent history Public Storage grew steadily in the early 2000s and was added to the S&P 500 in 2005. In 2006 it acquired Shurgard Storage Centers in a transaction totaling $5.5 billion, acquiring 624 locations, including 141 in Europe. Public Storage had attempted to acquire the company in 2000 and again in 2005, but its offers were rejected. The company has continued to make numerous acquisitions, such as a March 2010 purchase of 30 locations from A-American Self Storage. Operations Public Storage is the largest self-storage brand in the US. As of 2022, there were 2,836 Public Storage locations in the United States. There are 193 locations in Europe; European locations are operated by Shurgard Europe, which Public Storage owns 49 percent of. There are also