Private equity takeovers of UK companies are often seen as a sign of the country’s weaknesses. Blackstone’s tentative interest in property group Big Yellow, however, could be the opposite: a bid by the world’s largest commercial property investor would be a vote of confidence in the country’s economic outlook.

Blackstone said in a regulatory filing earlier this week that it had taken a “preliminary” look at Big Yellow, which owns brightly painted storage units with a book value of more than ￡2.5bn. Other suitors may also be in the frame, with Big Yellow noting that it had held meetings with “a small number of parties” to discuss options including a sale.

Self-storage units are not the same as the large warehouses Blackstone has been buying up across Europe, even if the buildings — paint jobs aside — share some superficial similarities. Warehouse investments are a bet on long-term trends such as the growth of ecommerce and reshoring by multinational companies; demand for self-storage, in contrast, is much more closely correlated with GDP growth.