Public Storagereported year-over-year gains in FFO and core FFO during the first quarter and raisedthe regular common quarterly dividend.

First-quarter FFO allocable to common shares hit about $364.4million, or $2.10 per share, up 19 cents, or 9.9%, on a per-share basis from roughly$331.1 million, or $1.91 per share, during the 2015 quarter.

Core FFO per share totaled $2.21 for the first quarter, up 13.9%from $1.94 in the prior-year period.

The S&P Capital IQ consensus FFO-per-share estimate for thefirst quarter was $2.19.

The company said that, during the first quarter, it paid $98million to purchase 12 self-storage facilities — seven in Florida, three in Ohio,and one each in South Carolina and Tennessee — with 800,000 net rentable squarefeet.

Subsequent to quarter-end, the company bought or was under contractto buy 13 self-storage facilities spanning 1.0 million net rentable square feetin Ohio, Texas, Utah, South Carolina and North Carolina for $115 million.

Additionally, the company during the first quarter completedtwo newly developed facilities and various expansion projects comprising 300,000net rentable square feet, with an aggregate cost of $21 million.

At March 31, the company had 3.9 million net rentable squarefeet of facilities in development, with an estimated cost of $506 million, and 700,000net rentable square feet of expansion projects, with an estimated cost of $101 million.It expects to incur the remaining $332 million of development costs for these projectsin 2016 and 2017.

Public Storage said its board declared a regular common quarterlydividend of $1.80 per common share, up 10 cents, or 5.9%, over the prior quarter'sdistribution.

The dividend will be paid June 30 to shareholders of record asof June 15.