Upbound Group, Inc. Q4 FY2020 Earnings Call

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Our earnings release was distributed after market close yesterday, and it outlines our operational and financial results for the fourth quarter of 2020. All related materials, including a link to the live webcast, are available on our website at investor.rentacenter.com. As a reminder, some of the statements provided on this call are forward-looking statements, which are subject to many factors that could cause actual results to differ materially and adversely from our expectations. These factors are described in our earnings release issued yesterday as well as in the company's SEC filings. Rent-A-Center undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, except as required by law. This call will also include references to non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our fourth quarter earnings release, which can be found on our website, for a description of the non-GAAP financial measures and a reconciliation to the most comparable GAAP financial measures. I'd now like to turn the call over to Mitch.

Thank you, Daniel, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. We'll be providing a voiceover to the presentation shown on the webcast that can be found on our website at investor.rentacenter.com. 2020 was a pivotal year here at Rent-A-Center. In late December of last year, we entered into an agreement to acquire Acima, a leading virtual platform. The closing of the acquisition earlier this month immediately transformed our retail partner business to a higher-growth, higher-profit, best-in-class virtual channel. At the same time, Rent-A-Center reinforced its position as a leading omnichannel business in lease-to-own. We had a sharp acceleration in same-store sales growth during 2020, and our profit was well above our original expectations. We made momentous progress during the year to optimize operations. We added significant talent and technology to drive our long-term strategy, and we ended 2020 a better company than we were at the beginning of the year. So looking at some of the additional highlights on Slide 3. Total revenues increased 5.4% for the year with adjusted EBITDA up 30% and diluted EPS up 58%. Preferred Lease invoice volume was over 20% on the year despite closures and product shortages that affected many of our retail partners. And of course, Acima will further improve our invoice volume growth going forward. Rent-A-Center ended 2020 with its 12th consecutive quarter of positive same-store sales. E-commerce revenues increased 53% in the quarter. And we believe we can maintain positive comps over the long term, supported by that e-commerce growth in our digital expansion and the continued strong performance of our lease portfolio and the momentum in the business. 2020 also demonstrates the resiliency of our model. The pandemic impacted almost everything we do in-stores around servicing and collections and across our supply chain. And our team acted quickly to adjust operations, add additional digital capabilities, and we've proved once again that our model can thrive in periods of economic uncertainty. And we think we're just getting started. Like I said earlier, we emerged from 2020 even stronger than before. Slide 4 provides an overview of our financial goals, and we think we can achieve $6 billion in consolidated revenues with a mid-teens consolidated adjusted EBITDA margin by 2023. On a pro forma basis, that equates to total consolidated revenue growth of 50% and consolidated adjusted EBITDA growth of 60%. We expect Acima to be approximately 30% accretive to non-GAAP EPS in 2021 with significant additional accretion in 2022. The acquisition dramatically increases our overall scale, profitability and free cash flow generation. And at the same time, we're confident our omnichannel strategy can maintain strong growth for the Rent-A-Center segment. Digital is enhancing engagement with our customers, and we have a strategic advantage compared to other virtual LTO firms due to our last-mile capabilities. We've got a strong balance sheet with about 2.4x leverage following the acquisition, and we intend to pay that down quickly. And we'll maintain a conservative financial policy that prioritizes investment in the business as we drive shareholder return. A big part of our excitement for the future is the Acima acquisition, which we recap on Slide 5. As I mentioned, we completed the acquisition in February, just earlier this month, after announcing it in late December, and we're fast at work on the integration. Acima is a profitable and rapidly growing virtual lease-to-own business, which has nearly doubled revenue and EBITDA each year for the past 5 years. So we're really bullish about the continued path for growth. A couple of important highlights. Acima accelerates our growth with premier platforms across both traditional and virtual lease-to-own. Their scale enhances our ability to compete for high-value national retail accounts. Their underwriting is best-in-class with a high-performing decision engine that supports a wide range of verticals. They bring extensive data and digital expertise and a superior back-end infrastructure. Importantly, we believe the purchase price and the mix of cash and equity consideration positions us to generate the kind of returns we expect. And probably more important than anything, we've retained the leadership team at Acima. So what does all that roll up to? Slide 6 puts our consolidated revenue, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin targets in graphic form. We start with where the Acima business would have put 2020 on a pro forma basis at $4.1 billion in consolidated revenue and $561 million in consolidated adjusted EBITDA. This acquisition is not a one-time bump. Our 2023 goal captures significant revenue and EBITDA growth as we integrate Acima and grow the Rent-A-Center business. Acima tilts revenues to the higher-growth retail partner business, which will obviously benefit earnings. We believe Acima can grow annual revenue by 25% with high-teen margins, and there are numerous synergies to drive our consolidated EBITDA margin to a mid-teens rate. We also expect strong contribution from the Rent-A-Center business to support those long-term goals. Slide 7 gives us a picture of our breadth following the Acima acquisition. We're starting 2021 with industry-leading platforms in both traditional and virtual. Rent-A-Center has about 2,400 locations with about 22% of its business in e-commerce. Acima and Preferred Lease combined have approximately 19,000 active retail doors with 15% of that business in e-commerce, and both businesses have the potential to increase e-commerce growth. Our scale will allow us to serve customers at multiple touch points as lease-to-own captures new product verticals and a younger generation of customers. And when you think about the number of young people who are averse to long-term debt obligations, you can see why leasing has such a high potential growth curve. When you consider point-of-sale adoption with the likes of Affirm and Afterpay, which require higher credit scores but are also potential gateways for us, that total addressable market becomes very exciting and very real. The combined company will meet customers wherever they want to transact, whether it's an Acima retail partner location or the retail partner website, in Rent-A-Center store or rentacenter.com, using our mobile app anywhere, and ultimately, via a virtual LTO marketplace. So before I turn the call over to Jason, I'd like to thank our coworkers, our franchisees, our retail partners and our suppliers for their dedication to serving customers during a challenging time. Our customers needed us this year more than ever, and we provided them access to household goods with flexible payment options without the burden of long-term debt obligations. And we rose to innumerable challenges this year, and I'll tell you, I'm constantly inspired by the service and the dedication our folks put towards putting our customers first. So proud of everybody. It's been a great year, and we've only just begun. So with that, I'll turn it over to Jason.

Thanks, Mitch. I'll start with a brief review of the quarter before turning it to the Acima integration. We ended up 2020 with solid momentum in the business. During the fourth quarter, invoice volume increased approximately 25% year-over-year, driven by the addition of virtual retail partner locations and organic growth in virtual and staffed locations. Total revenues rose 4.8% and were impacted by product constraints at our retail partners as well as higher early payout activity related to continued stimulus. We believe payout activity may remain elevated if there is additional government stimulus, but we're very pleased with the growth and makeup of the invoice volume we're generating. Adjusted EBITDA was $18.3 million for the quarter. Skip/stolen losses were 11.6% versus 14.2% a year ago. The lease portfolio features a more attractive risk profile across our customer base that should allow us to drive revenue and yields as we grow the business. Now turning to the main point on Slide 8. We're thrilled to be adding Acima after a fast and effective close in February. This combination will enable us to rapidly combine our proprietary digital and mobile technology with Acima's best-in-class decision engine, operating system and integrated servicing platform. Having performed a brand study as part of the due diligence process leading up to the acquisition, Preferred Dynamix will become Acima at the top of the house. Preferred Lease, Preferred Digital and Preferred Marketplace will become Acima Lease, Acima Digital and Acima Marketplace, respectively. This will enable us to gain an immediate benefit of the Acima brand at thousands of merchants, continued rapid growth within the e-commerce segment and minimize any merchant or customer confusion in the marketplace. We expect Acima to be accretive in year 1 and more accretive in year 2. We believe there are $40 million to $70 million in potential synergies, and we expect $25 million of that to be realized in 2021. Once integrated, we believe Acima can grow revenues 25% on an annual basis with a mid-teens adjusted EBITDA margin. As we rebrand the Acima name, we are migrating Preferred Lease onto the Acima decision engine, enabling us to take advantage of the integrated collections and services process. Our goal is to have all virtual locations converted to the Acima platform by midyear and all staff locations converted by the end of this year. We believe Acima's complementary technology, channels, retail partners, and product verticals can drive long-term margin expansion, and we also believe we can leverage benefits to Rent-A-Center stores in the area of product returns. Turning to Slide 9. We've already begun our integration efforts to plug in Preferred Dynamix' front-end customer-facing technology into the Acima operating system. Our goal is to provide ubiquitous access for customers while building a long-term relationship. The critical component is our ability to provide low-friction solutions to help connect our customers with our merchant partners and facilitate seamless lease transactions. As I mentioned in our last earnings call, we launched an innovation partner program with a number of national merchants for our new native mobile platform, which has been running for several months now. I'm pleased to report some encouraging metrics coming off these pilot programs. We have succeeded in taking the origination process in both our virtual and staffed locations down from an average of almost 20 minutes to under 1 minute. The most interesting finding coming from these pilots is the proprietary low-friction mobile origination process, requiring only 3 fields from customers, has resulted in a pickup of incremental customers who would otherwise find it discouraging to seek approval from a traditional lease-to-own process. During testing, we saw some partners see as high as an 18% increase in in-store approvals through implementation of the mobile app. The ability for customers and retail partners to present, review and execute a lease agreement, all within the mobile app, grew increasingly more important as a contactless option throughout the holiday shopping season with further momentum driven by ongoing concerns over COVID. Innovations like this continue to help our retail partners physically de-risk transactions and demonstrate appropriate safety protocols for customers. Development of both our proprietary browser and marketplace technologies is proceeding on schedule with the prototype and pilot of our browser technology to launch during the first quarter. We'll have more to report out on that later in Q1 with some paradigm-shifting strategic technology partnerships to announce as well.

Thanks, Jay. The Rent-A-Center business had a strong end to 2020. Total revenues in the fourth quarter were up 5.8% with an impressive 13.7% increase in same-store sales. Revenue growth in the quarter was driven by continued strength in our portfolio, and we achieved the growth despite refranchising approximately 100 stores in California. Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA margin was up 580 basis points versus last year. The teams executed extremely well overall with an improvement in gross margin, favorable losses and lower skip/stolen. As we outline on Slide 11, driven by e-commerce growth, we expect to maintain strong progress in 2021 and believe the Rent-A-Center business can sustain low to mid-single-digit comps over the long-term, and we plan to be on the higher end of that range in 2021. Additionally, we expect to generate a 20% adjusted EBITDA margin over time. Our strategy to support long-term growth includes increasing omnichannel sales while leveraging existing store infrastructure and accelerating e-commerce growth. We believe there's a great opportunity to leverage Acima's decision engine for our business, and we'll continue to expand digital payment and emerging categories. Mitch characterized 2020 as pivotal, and that is particularly true for our Rent-A-Center business. While the pandemic accelerated a shift in shopping patterns, we advanced operational and strategic work to support long-term growth for omnichannel. We launched a new website with service integration that better ties web orders with the stores. We gave customers greater control over their own payment enrollments, and we worked hard to improve communication across the consumer experience. Slide 12 shows the initial results of our efforts. We've seen a digital acceleration in the Rent-A-Center business segment with e-commerce doubling over the last 2 years. Digital payments account for almost half our volume, and they result in much stickier customer engagement. Our goal is to grow e-commerce to over 30% of Rent-A-Center revenues over the next several years, and we are well on our way with over 50% growth in the fourth quarter. The work we accomplished in 2020 supports a move to a full online transaction with an end-to-end shopping experience and self-service account management. That will obviously include a strong decision engine and fraud detection. As e-commerce grows, we do not need to add infrastructure costs as our store locations handle the final-mile delivery and the payment flow from the customer. We don't need to separate facilities to handle inventory or delivery, and it layers over our store business in a very seamless way for omnichannel growth. We're also working to improve the in-store experience with technology that enables better service, deeper ties with mobile and web management and a smoother point-of-sale transaction. I'll now turn it over to Maureen to discuss the fourth quarter financials and our 2021 outlook.

Thanks, Anthony. I'll be covering the financial highlights for the fourth quarter, 2021 guidance, our new debt structure following the Acima acquisition and corporate allocation priorities. Looking at highlights for the quarter on Slide 13. On a consolidated basis, total revenues were $716.5 million, a 7.3% increase versus the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA rose 52.2% to $97 million and rose 400 basis points as a percent of revenues to 13.5%. Revenue growth and an increase in profitability combined to drive a 77.2% increase in non-GAAP diluted EPS, which was $1.03 for the quarter. Preferred Lease revenue increased 4.8%, and invoice volume increased approximately 25%, driven by growth in new virtual retail partner additions and organic growth in existing locations. The difference in revenue growth and invoice volume growth was influenced by higher early payouts as well as challenges with the availability of inventory at many retail partners. Overall, increases in invoice volumes support a strong lease portfolio. Preferred Lease skip/stolen losses were 11.6%. The skip/stolen rate was positively influenced by 130 basis points as a result of reversing our remaining incremental merchandise loss reserve created earlier in the year to address potential COVID-19 losses. Adjusted EBITDA for Preferred Lease was $18.3 million, a slight increase versus the prior year, and came in at 9.1% of revenue. Without the inventory shortages at our retail partners, we estimate the adjusted EBITDA margin would have been approximately 10.5%. Higher revenue and lower operating expenses were partially offset by lower gross profit margin from a higher mix of virtual. Turning to Rent-A-Center. Revenue was up 5.8% driven by a 13.7% increase in same-store sales, and the performance was achieved despite the refranchising of approximately 100 stores in California. The lease portfolio ended the fourth quarter up 10% versus last year and is a good leading indicator for near-term same-store sales performance. Skip/stolen losses were 2.6% of revenue in the Rent-A-Center business. The 150 basis point improvement over the prior year was partially driven by increased digital payment adoption. Adjusted EBITDA was $102.9 million, representing an increase of $30.8 million versus the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 22.2% for the quarter, up 580 basis points versus the prior year, driven by increased operating leverage from higher revenue and lower operating expenses that were partially due to a lower store count. Our balance sheet improved over last year with $236.5 million generated in cash from operations in 2020 and a cash balance at the end of the quarter of $159.4 million. We believe our strong balance sheet made us well positioned for the Acima acquisition. Turning to our 2021 guidance on Slide 14. Consolidated revenues are expected to be between $4.305 billion and $4.455 billion for 2021. We expect consolidated adjusted EBITDA of $570 million to $620 million and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share of $5 to $5.55. We also expect to generate free cash flow of $145 million to $195 million for the year. Turning to our segment projections. We expect our new Acima segment, which includes Preferred Lease for 12 months and Acima for 10.5 months of the year post-acquisition, to generate revenues of $2.29 billion to $2.39 billion. Adjusted EBITDA of $320 million to $350 million is expected with adjusted EBITDA margins of 14% to 14.7% of segment revenues. We expect the Rent-A-Center business segment to achieve revenues of $1.83 billion to $1.88 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $375 million to $395 million or 20.5% to 21% of segment revenues. There are a few additional things I'd like to point out regarding our guidance. Our adjusted EBITDA guidance is positively impacted by the Acima acquisition, growth in the business and synergies and negatively impacted year-over-year by COVID-related benefits in 2020. As we shift to more of our business coming from the retail partner channel, our gross margins will decline due to paying retail costs for product versus wholesale costs in the Rent-A-Center business, but our operating expenses will decrease as a percentage of revenue, given the asset-light business and scalability of the virtual model. Integration costs of approximately $5 million to $10 million are expected, and along with the intangibles amortization impact from the acquisition, will result in differences in GAAP and non-GAAP earnings for 2021. As is our practice, our 2021 projection does not incorporate any share repurchase activity and assumes approximately 69 million diluted shares outstanding, which has increased due to the recent acquisition. Given the impact of the pandemic and stimulus on our 2020 results and the Acima acquisition, there are also some things to point out regarding the expected cadence of earnings in 2021. Looking at the first quarter, we expect revenue to increase 30% to 35% year-over-year with approximately 65% increase in non-GAAP diluted earnings per share assuming a tax refund season similar to prior years. Looking at the balance of the year, we expect revenue to increase in the 60% to 65% range for each quarter with non-GAAP diluted EPS fairly evenly distributed by quarter and reflecting normal seasonal patterns. We expect Rent-A-Center same-store sales to decelerate in the second half given the tough comps in the back half of 2020, but remain fairly flat versus last year given portfolio growth. Turning to Slide 15. We provide a free cash flow walk, which calculates our expected free cash flow guidance range, starting with the midpoint of our adjusted EBITDA guidance. This includes cash taxes of $30 million to $40 million, which reflects the benefits of the tax step-up associated with the acquisition and an approximate tax rate of 24%. Interest expenses are expected to be approximately $70 million to $75 million based on our new debt structure post-acquisition and a weighted average interest rate of approximately 5.5%. Capital expenditures are expected to be $65 million to $70 million, which includes higher investments in technology and store refurbishment costs. Over the long term, we would expect to reduce CapEx to $50 million to $60 million per year. Working capital investments will also be required for funding new leases, bringing our free cash flow estimate to between $145 million and $195 million. Looking at our debt structure on Slide 16 post-acquisition. We now have a $550 million asset-based loan with $165 million drawn at the time of the acquisition, an $875 million term loan B and $450 million in unsecured senior notes. Our debt-to-EBITDA leverage was 2.4x at the time of the acquisition, and we have ample flexibility and liquidity to invest in growth. Lastly, on Slide 17. Our capital allocation priorities are to fuel organic growth of the largely untapped virtual lease-to-own business, both through strong adjusted EBITDA growth and debt paydown. Our goal is to reduce net leverage to below 2x in 18 months, with a long-term leverage target of 1.5x while maintaining robust liquidity. We also plan to continue to provide attractive total shareholder returns, and our capital allocation strategy continues to include returning capital to our shareholders in the form of dividends. As always, detailed income statements by segment are posted to our website, and the 10-K will be filed tomorrow, Friday, February 26. Thank you for your time today.

I appreciate the strong guidance for 2023, and that $6 billion of revenues is significant. Could you separate it out between the Rent-A-Center business and Acima and discuss what needs to happen to achieve that? For Acima, do you need to open significantly more stores from the current approximately 17,000? Also, could you elaborate on how you plan to achieve that growth?

Sure, this is Maureen. I'll outline some of the key factors behind our 2023 projections. We are expecting annual revenue growth of 20% to 25% within the Acima segment. For the Rent-A-Center business, we anticipate low to mid-single-digit growth in same-store sales, primarily driven by e-commerce. We aim to increase the e-commerce contribution to about 30% of revenue for Rent-A-Center. We also expect to achieve mid-teens consolidated EBITDA margins. Additionally, we are projecting synergies between $40 million and $70 million, with loss rates remaining consistent with historical averages. The anticipated 20% to 25% growth within the Acima business will be fueled by both organic growth and the addition of new retail partners. Over the next three years, we expect that Acima will account for more than two-thirds of our business compared to Rent-A-Center.

Yes. This is Jason. Thanks, Maureen. I would just add 3 quick points. Point number one is that we have now a very strong combined national sales organization where they've had tremendous success, and we've been able to take the best of both of those teams. And we have a very aggressive plan to continue to grow new doors in the space, and they've continued to gain traction there. The second thing is that Maureen was talking about with regard to being positioned for large national partners, kind of both on the physical retail side as well as on the e-commerce side. And kind of one of the key factors that is coming to play with the Acima acquisition is that they have an optimized front end for integration with e-commerce partners as well as in large retailers. And their decision engine enables us to move very quickly because they're able to teach the decision engine much faster and they are bringing a wealth of their own data, and we're combining that data with our own historic performance data, which is going to enable us to ramp partners faster. And then the third quick point is that we have a very specific strategy with regard to mobile, browser and marketplace, and that enables us to take our combined customer universe and point it at new means and expands the ability for our customers to lease-to-own. So the combination of those 3 things will position us. That third and final factor also is proprietary. So it gives us an advantage, and we're going to obviously rigorously defend our intellectual property.

I appreciate that, Jay. As a follow-up, I value the information you provided about the e-commerce percentage. If I consider the overall 15% and exclude the Rent-A-Center business, which is at 25%, it seems that Acima is currently around the high single-digit percentage for e-commerce. I am curious about your thoughts on how that percentage could evolve as the business matures. You mentioned Wayfair in your slide deck, which is entirely e-commerce. Where do you see potential growth in this area over time?

Vincent, this is Mitch. The 15% represents Acima, while the 25% reflects Rent-A-Center on the e-commerce side, or roughly 25% for Rent-A-Center. So, from a revenue perspective, they are about even right now, although the Acima segment might be slightly larger. I’m not sure if the blended figure would be around 19% or 20% or something like that. As for the potential growth of e-commerce, Jay, I’ll let you address that.

Yes. No, we're going to see an acceleration there because we ended up getting like a forced multiplier effect. So now that if you look at an account like a Wayfair, you start to expand that into other verticals. We have a number of partners that we're in the process of partnership discussions with. So I think similarly, you'll see that become overweighted sort of in the back half of '22, and then throughout '23 where that becomes actually a very significant portion of our revenue.

Okay. Great. And sorry, last one. To the extent you can comment, it looks like some of your peers have received an inquiry from California, and I was wondering if Rent-A-Center received the same and anything you can say about that.

Thanks, Vincent. No, we have not received that at Rent-A-Center or Acima. We did not get anything from California that you're referring to. I would only add that we follow the laws in every state. California has a lease-to-own law, and we comply with it. But the short answer is no, we didn't get that letter. I'd also remind everyone that we franchised California on the Rent-A-Center side last fall, so we don't have any corporate stores in California. So that's a little more context.

I want to extend my congratulations to the team. What you have accomplished over the past couple of years has been truly impressive. There were times when I had concerns about the business, but you have all really done excellent work. So, congratulations on that. Now, regarding my question, there was a lot of valuable information shared about Acima and Rent-A-Center and the future plans. However, I had some difficulty keeping up with all the numbers presented. There's a lot of information, and I will review it again. But I would like to know, on a pro forma basis for 2021, if you had owned Acima for the entire year, what would Acima's revenues and EBITDA be?

On a pro forma basis, we expect revenue growth between 20% and 25% over 2020, and our pro forma EBITDA would be approximately $25 million higher than $335 million.

Got it. Okay. No, that's really helpful.

And thank you, Anthony, for your kind words at the beginning of that. We appreciate those words.

No problem. Keep up the good work.

Congrats on managing a challenging year and an exciting start to 2021. I guess, first, Mitch, I wanted to maybe circle up and do a high-level question here first. But the 2023 outlook is impressive for both sides of the business. Maybe can you just talk a little bit about your view on how the virtual channel can coexist with the traditional store channel. And to put it into context, some of the pushback we occasionally get on the space is that virtual will take share from the store. And I understand the customer profiles are a little different, stuff like that. But any additional color about how you see them both growing together over the next three years would be helpful. And then maybe as a second part of that, what type of credit environment do you need over the next three years to hit those targets? And I'll go from there.

Sure, Bobby. Those are good questions. The virtual business has grown significantly, and there's still a lot of potential out there. We've heard concerns for years about it cannibalizing the Rent-A-Center side, but we aren't seeing that trend and I don't expect to in the future. I believe that virtual lease-to-own, whether through a retail partner's store or e-commerce as Jay mentioned, is helping to make lease-to-own more mainstream. The rise of buy now, pay later companies, like Shopify and Affirm, is also contributing to this shift by making small payments more accessible. As people learn more about leasing, it benefits the entire industry. However, not everyone who hears about leasing in a retail store immediately signs up; in fact, probably less than 50% complete a transaction, and in the virtual space, the figure is around 40% to 50%. This means that a significant number of people leave having heard about leasing for the first time but choose not to act. Over the years, we've observed trends that support this. For instance, after acquiring Acima, we noted that they generated about $1.2 billion last year. Despite the competition in the market, Rent-A-Center has experienced positive same-store sales for 12 consecutive quarters. I'm not just speculating about the future; I'm reflecting on our history. As leasing becomes more mainstream, it benefits Rent-A-Center as well. Regarding credit, we've performed well in various economic conditions. When credit tightens, we tend to do well, and in 2018 and '19, we excelled even without tight credit, demonstrating the resilience of our model. A tighter credit environment tends to funnel different customer segments into leasing, and a loosening environment brings in others. The economy can influence customer behavior, but our historical performance shows we can adapt. I don't believe we need a specific credit environment in the next three years to achieve our target of $6 billion.

Okay. That's helpful. I appreciate it. And I guess, secondly for me, maybe I want to just dive into the synergy potential a little bit more. And in particular, the potential synergies of Acima helping out the core Rent-A-Center business, are those more 2022 aspect? And if so, what's some of the big building blocks or moving parts that you and the team will be working on integrating here in 2021 to get it set up for those synergies to accelerate in 2022?

Yes, thank you for the question. We are already making progress. We closed the transaction last Wednesday and have begun integrating our national sales teams while streamlining our field force. We are focused on realizing synergies and are confident in the synergy figures we project for 2021. Regarding Rent-A-Center, we see several opportunities. Beyond the expected synergies, the decision engine has significant potential for both businesses as we incorporate our Preferred Lease from an origination standpoint, while the Acima engine yields impressive results in this sector. Additionally, Anthony has been involved in testing and implementing the decision engine on the Rent-A-Center side, allowing us to further capitalize on its benefits, leading to a positive yield impact. These are immediate actions. Furthermore, with e-commerce enhancing our yield capacity through improved decision-making and an integrated service platform, as I mentioned earlier, the performance of that portfolio is also set to improve due to better collection efforts. Lastly, we are collaborating on collection processes, working towards an automated solution to streamline operations as we scale the business. All these initiatives have already begun and will progress, with noticeable effects this year and expected to reach a full run rate next year.

Yes. And I would echo the sentiments about the decision engine. On the Rent-A-Center business, we're excited the synergies associated with that is our loss rates are well within our range right now. We feel very, very confident. But the opportunity for us to go ahead and just improve the customer experience with the Acima decision engine and really continue to reduce the friction and speed up that transactions. I mean we're focused on it as an opportunity to convert our customers quicker and faster. So these synergies are very exciting as we move forward.

Okay. And that's very helpful. I guess lastly for me. Jason, I might have missed it. You gave some good detail about the building blocks for seamless growth. And I guess what I was curious is, do you see the opportunity to partner with some of the second-tier offering credit people as some of your competitors have? Is that in the cards? Or is it more for you guys to focus on growing the doors and then the ultimate opportunity of further monetizing your existing customer base to additional categories and things like that?

Yes. The positive aspect is that they already have a dual approach. When you consider the integration of e-commerce into the waterfalls represented by some of the logos we displayed, both on the physical and e-commerce sides, it provides a foundation we can continue to build upon. It's not a matter of choosing one over the other. These capabilities are already generating substantial revenue, and our aim is to keep increasing that. Additionally, we will continue to pursue further integrations from a waterfall perspective by collaborating with the partners you mentioned. Moreover, we are on track with our own browser and marketplace technology, allowing us to access a vast universe of customers and offer them a seamless experience for online transactions. The encouraging news is that the foundation is already established, it's actively being used, and we are now focused on accelerating our growth.

Thank you, Bobby.

Let me add my congratulations as well on a great year and a very exciting outlook here with Acima. I wanted to follow up on the last line of questioning a bit to talk about how much you may need to adjust and refine Acima's product offering. When I think of the legacy offering of Rent-A-Center's digital B2C operations, which have gone under a number of names over the years, I think of it as having been very strong on the man side with obviously some very important national partners. And then when I think of Acima's legacy business, it tends to skew, I think, a bit more towards smaller, independent retailers. I guess, Jason and Mitch, as you look at the product offering, how much do you think you have to evolve it to grow the addressable market and to improve your ability to compete with the field?

Thank you for the question. What you're seeing is a highly sophisticated, vertically integrated system that encompasses origination through online and mobile channels, as well as their retail origination system. This is connected to the decision engine and the servicing platform for collections. Besides the addition of our Benefits Plus program and our Loss Damage Waiver program, which are incremental enhancements, the core system is fully prepared to support our operations on both the virtual and staff sides. The focus is on ensuring a smooth rollout. We have a sequential integration plan in place, and we are currently on schedule to achieve this by the middle of the year, aiming to have everything operational at scale by the second quarter. We have also begun testing the Acima platform in our staffed locations on a limited basis. The system's effectiveness is evident; we closed on a Wednesday and by the following Monday, we were able to launch a store. This situation is ideal for us as it allows us to merge our origination business and partnerships within this top-tier platform.

That's very helpful. And a follow-up on the synergy commentary. When we think about that range of $40 million to $70 million, is there a way to think of what sort of maybe the minimum might be that you can feel confident when you look at the expenses that you know you're going to get those dollars versus what might be a little bit more speculative if it's something along the lines of potential revenues, for example? Just how to think about quantifying that range.

Yes, this is Mitch. This year, we discussed $25 million, and we are confident in that figure or we would have retained some of it. Regarding the $40 million to $70 million range, we are clearly confident in the lower end, and honestly, we feel good about the upper end as well. If you remember back to 2018, when I returned to the company, our projections kept improving as we explored further. As Jay mentioned, we only closed 8 days ago, so as time progresses, we may uncover more synergies, and as you noted, the yield could enhance our top line. Jay referred to Benefits Plus and LDW that we employ on the Preferred Lease side of the business, which we are integrating into Acima since they haven't had it before. Overall, we are very confident in the $40 million projection, and the entire range might ultimately prove to be conservative.

And just to add to that, Brad, most of what we've built in from a synergies perspective are around a higher gross margin and cost savings. So about $16 million of the $25 million in synergies for '21 will be margin improvement within the Acima Preferred Lease business and about $10 million will be corporate-related expense reductions. So those are more tangible, less estimates as far as revenue. They're more concrete and predictable.

That's very helpful. And then recognizing that you only closed a week ago, so you still have a lot of work ahead of you here. I know a question that you're going to get is, have you had a chance to review what the customer overlap is between Acima and the Rent-A-Center business? And how you're thinking about serving those customers that do work through both channels?

Yes. During our due diligence, we became more detailed about this, and it turns out that the two sets are quite complementary. This aligns with Mitch's earlier point about the significant addressable market available. We are not in direct competition for the same customers, resulting in minimal overlap, which is advantageous as it allows us to leverage our strengths more effectively.

Let me echo the sentiments on a very strong 2020 and exciting acquisition. I'll focus on the Acima segment, what will be the Acima segment first in terms of credit performance. Can you give us a sense for what Acima's historical losses were as an independent? And then potentially where you see that heading given the combination with Rent-A-Center?

Sure. The Acima business has loss rates between 7% and 8% of revenue. There is a minor accounting difference in how we handle losses in the Preferred Lease and Rent-A-Center sectors, but this aligns more closely with other virtual competitors. As we integrate with Acima, we expect that in 2021, our loss rates will be in the low double digits. Over time, as we merge the two businesses, we anticipate a shift to high single digits, bringing us closer to the 7% to 8% range seen in Acima. As Jay mentioned, we will be transitioning our Preferred Lease and virtual businesses onto the Acima platform, and we expect to achieve improvements through the decision engine.

Got it. Very helpful. And then, Maureen, probably another one for you. As we work on building our consolidated models here, what sort of disclosures can we expect for the Acima segment? Would you guess it's similar to what we're getting in terms of invoice volumes or active doors? Or just how we should think about modeling that segment going forward?

Yes. Kyle, it will be very similar to what we do today for Preferred Lease. We'll be disclosing the combined Acima and Preferred Lease business together. We don't plan on separating the two since, again, they will be fully integrated businesses. And then we'll be providing invoice volume. As we grow the e-commerce business and the marketplace, the number of doors becomes less relevant, so we're focused around invoice volume.

Just had some modeling questions. Maureen, I know you went through kind of 1Q guidance. I didn't get everything written down. Can you just repeat what you said on revenue and earnings?

Sure. No problem. So for Q1, we assume that revenue is going to be up 30% to 35% and that EPS will be up around 65%. And that takes into account kind of that stub period or the 1.5 months where we did not have Acima before the transaction.

And that's year-over-year, correct?

Correct.

Most of them actually just got answered, but I do have a clarification question for Jason. Just wondering how you guys define e-commerce sales at Acima. Are these sales that were fully processed online on the website? Or do you include like your originations online and closing somewhere else?

No, this is a complete e-commerce process, from origination to funding and purchase. It stands as its own segment. Any activities we conduct within a store are specifically related to the retail purchases made there.

Yes. If you want to add that it originated with the retail partners on their website and then was closed in the store, that would be much higher than 15%.

Yes. This is Anthony. I'll take that. Obviously, as part of our strategy, we know the opportunities that are present for us on the web. But equally, we still see tremendous upside on our brick-and-mortar locations as well to not only serve that omnichannel experience for the customer, but also to be the final mile for the growing e-comm business as well. And when we just go forward for 2021, our forecast is at least net neutral on store locations, flat where we're at and potentially some upside opportunities as well.

Our first question is from Vincent Caintic with Stephens. I'll take that. Obviously, as part of our strategy, we know the opportunities that are present for us on the web. But equally, we still see tremendous upside on our brick-and-mortar locations as well to not only serve that omnichannel experience for the customer, but also to be the final mile for the growing e-comm business as well. And when we just go forward for 2021, our forecast is at least net neutral on store locations, flat where we're at and potentially some upside opportunities as well.

Just another question, follow-up on Acima on your guidance for the full year. Does that include revenue synergies? Or I guess now that you've gotten under the hood and own the business, do you have a sense for the revenue synergies you could see from combining the two businesses over the next few years?

The guidance itself doesn't include any revenue synergies, not to say that there aren't potential opportunities. I mean adding the decision engine speeds up the process in our Preferred Lease business. And so there's that's an example of an opportunity to potentially have revenue synergies.

Thank you, Megan, and thank you all for your time this morning. I want to acknowledge our approximately 15,000 employees who excelled in 2020, as you've heard. I am optimistic that they can achieve the same success in 2021. I would like to officially welcome the outstanding team in Salt Lake City at Acima. I have already welcomed them privately, but I want to do it publicly now for Aaron, Tyler, Rob, Nate, Jerry, and the entire team. I could list more names, although I haven't met everyone yet, but they are a fantastic group. We are truly glad to have them with us. They have performed exceptionally well over the past 7 or 8 years, and I am confident they will continue to excel. We are fortunate to retain the entire leadership team there. So, welcome to all of you, and thank you again for your time this morning. I also want to express my appreciation for everyone's hard work at our wonderful company. Thank you.

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.