In a preliminary estimate, Rent-A-Center announced that core comparable store sales in the United States for the three months ended December 31 tumbled by 14%.
Comps at the company’s Acceptance operations, which runs separately from the core namesake stores, gained between 1% and 2%, the company estimated. Rent-A-Center expects diluted losses per share on both a GAAP and adjusted basis to fall between between 20 cents and 30 cents.
“The fourth quarter proved to be more challenging than expected,” said Mark Speese, the company’s interim CEO. “In our core Rent-A-Center stores, recovery from the POS system issues in recapturing the rental portfolio lost during prior periods and account management improvement did not happen as quickly as planned. While the portfolio increased sequentially, as it typically does during the period, the company was heavily promotional which also impacted the quarter.”
