Rent-A-Center, Inc. Reports Third Quarter 2007 Results

Business Wire, Oct 29, 2007

* Store rental and fee revenues are expected to be between $2.585 billion and $2.625 billion.

* Total store revenues are expected to be in the range of $2.890 billion and $2.930 billion.

* Same store sales are expected to be in the flat to 2% range.

* The Company expects to open approximately 40 new rent-to-own store locations.

* The Company expects to add financial services to approximately 200 rent-to-own store locations.

Expenses

* The Company expects cost of rental and fees to be between 22.1% and 22.5% of store rental and fee revenue and cost of merchandise sold to be between 72% and 76% of store merchandise sales.

* Store salaries and other expenses are expected to be in the range of 58.5% to 60.0% of total store revenue.

* General and administrative expenses are expected to be between 4.3% and 4.5% of total revenue.

* Net interest expense is expected to be between $80 million and $85 million, depreciation of property assets is expected to be between $68 million and $73 million and amortization of intangibles is expected to be approximately $12 million.

* The effective tax rate is expected to be approximately 37.0% of pre-tax income.

* Diluted earnings per share are estimated to be in the range of $1.95 to $2.10.

* Diluted shares outstanding are estimated to be between 67.5 million and 68.5 million.

This press release and the guidance above contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements generally can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "may," "will," "expect," "intend," "could," "estimate," "should," "anticipate," or "believe," or the negative thereof or variations thereon or similar terminology. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements will prove to be correct, the Company can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to have been correct. The actual future performance of the Company could differ materially from such statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to: uncertainties regarding the ability to open new rent-to-own stores; the Company's ability to acquire additional rent-to-own stores on favorable terms; the Company's ability to identify and successfully enter new lines of business offering products and services that appeal to its customer demographic, including its financial services products; the Company's ability to enhance the performance of acquired stores, including the Rent-Way stores acquired in November 2006; the Company's ability to control costs; the Company's ability to identify and successfully market products and services that appeal to its customer demographic; the Company's ability to enter into new and collect on its rental purchase agreements; the Company's ability to enter into new and collect on its short term loans; the passage of legislation adversely affecting the rent-to-own or financial services industries; interest rates; economic pressures affecting the disposable income available to the Company's targeted consumers, such as high fuel and utility costs; changes in the Company's stock price and the number of shares of common stock that it may or may not repurchase; changes in estimates relating to self-insurance liabilities and income tax and litigation reserves; changes in the Company's effective tax rate; the Company's ability to maintain an effective system of internal controls; changes in the number of share-based compensation grants, methods used to value future share-based payments and changes in estimated forfeiture rates with respect to share-based compensation; the resolution of the Company's litigation; the court hearing the Walker case could refuse to approve the settlement or could require changes to the settlement that are unacceptable to the Company or the plaintiffs; one or more parties filing an objection to the settlement of the Walker case; and the other risks detailed from time to time in our SEC reports, including but not limited to, the Company's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2006, and its quarterly reports for the quarters ended March 31, 2007, and June 30, 2007. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. Except as required by law, the Company is not obligated to publicly release any revisions to these forward-looking statements to reflect the events or circumstances after the date of this press release or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.