Daily News
From Home Furnishing Business
Rent-A-Center Acquires Merchants Preferred
August 15,
2019 by Laurie Northington in Acquisition, Business Strategy, Industry 
Rent-to-own major Rent-A-Center, Inc. (NASDAQ:RCII) has completed its acquisition of substantially all of the assets of C/C Financial Corp d/b/a Merchants Preferred, a nationwide provider of virtual rent-to-own services. The transaction is expected to accelerate Rent-A-Center’s virtual rent-to-own growth.
“We are thrilled to welcome Merchants Preferred into the Rent-A-Center family. Merchants Preferred complements our existing capabilities and the combined organization will have the most comprehensive offering in the industry,” said Mitch Fadel, CEO of Rent-A-Center. “Merchants Preferred brings a proven technology platform, scalable infrastructure and a strong centralized retail partner support team that will enable us to execute against our growth goals in the over $20 billion virtual rent-to-own industry.”
With the close of the deal, Joe Corona, president and CEO of Merchants Preferred, now joins Rent-A-Center and will continue to lead the virtual strategy.
“We are excited to join the Rent-A-Center team and scale the technology platform and capabilities we have worked hard to build over the last seven years,” said Corona.
Rent-A-Center has updated its annual revenue, net debt and net debt to adjusted EBITDA guidance to reflect the expected impact of the Merchants Preferred acquisition. The company will include Merchants Preferred in the Acceptance Now segment. Revenue in the segment is now expected to be $725 million to $745 million, up from $700 million to $715 million. Due to the funding of the acquisition the company expects net debt to be $225 million to $195 million, up from $195 million to $165 million. Additionally, net debt to adjusted EBITDA is expected to be 1.0 times to 0.7 times, up from 0.9 times to 0.6 times.