Rent-a-Center Buys TRS to Expand Customer-Credit Kiosk Business

Rent-a-Center (RAC) bought TRS for $75.5 million as it moves to expand its customer-credit business with regional retailers and scales back offering financial services through its stores. The deal, which has closed, was primarily funded from cash on hand, RAC said Thursday. TRS has offered name-brand CE products through retail sales and lease-purchase programs since 1983.

In buying TRS, which has $100 million in annual sales, RAC acquires 145 kiosks at Ashley, Conn’s, Rooms To Go and other regional and local dealers, said David Carpenter, RAC’s director of investor relations. TRS operated the kiosks under The Rental Store banner. RAC will add the TRS holdings to its RAC Acceptance business, which runs in-store kiosks at retail locations.

RAC and TRS had deployed kiosks separately at Ashley, Conn’s and Rooms To Go locations, Carpenter told us. RAC Acceptance consists of RAC staff located at the same counter as a retailer’s personnel or at a separate desk to offer those turned down for credit a chance to rent product. RAC Acceptance also has a services agreement with Nationwide Marketing Group where it launched with Big Sandy’s Electronics. RAC, which had 100 Acceptance kiosks in place at midyear (CED July 28 p5), expects double that number in place by year-end, Carpenter told us.

As it expands the kiosk business, RAC is pulling back the CashAdvantEdge financial services business built into some of its stores. It sold most customer accounts in 207 locations, leaving it with 112, Carpenter said. RAC, which had 326 CashAdvantEdge locations in late September, also shut seven in Montana that were affected by a change in state law. RAC rapidly built the financial services store-within-a-store format to more than 300 locations over six years but began scaling it back this year. In October, RAC said it was reviewing “strategic alternatives” for the business.