Rent-A-Center

The rent-to-own business was started by Ernie Talley in Wichita, Kansas during the 1960s when he told customers of his store, Mr. T's Rental, that they had rented a washer and dryer for a long enough duration that they had paid for it in full and now owned it. Thomas Devlin, a former employee of Mr. T's rental, recognized the potential of renting name-brand products and partnered with W. Frank Barton and founded the Rent-A-Center brand in Wichita, Kansas in 1973.

Mark Speese joined Rent-A-Center in 1979. In 1986, Mr. Speese and a colleague left Rent-A-Center and started a competing business known as Vista Rent-To-Own. Ernest Talley then joined Vista Rent-To-Own as chairman of the board of directors in 1989 and remained Chairman through Vista's transition to Rent-A-Center. In 1987, Thorn EMI acquired Rent-A-Center for $594 million.Vista Rent-To-Own changed its name to Renters Choice, Inc. in December 1993, in connection with the acquisition from DEF Investments, Inc. and certain related entities of an 84 store rent-to-own chain operating in 12 states.Renters Choice went public on the NASDAQ stock exchange in 1995 under the symbol "RCII". In August 1998, Renters Choice acquired Thorn Americas, Inc., which operated 1,474 stores in 49 states and the District of Columbia under the name "Rent-A-Center". On 31 December 1998, Renters Choice changed its name to Rent-A-Center, Inc. and began operating all of its stores under the "Rent-A-Center" brand name.In 2001, Talley retired and Speese was appointed as Rent-A-Center's Chairman and CEO. In February 2003, Rent-A-Center acquired 295 stores from Rent-Way, Inc. In March 2004, Rent-A-Center commenced operating in Canada with the acquisition of five stores located in Edmonton and Calgary, Alberta. In May 2004, Rent-A-Center completed the acquisitions of Rainbow Rentals, Inc. and Rent Rite, Inc. Rent-A-Center completed its acquisition of competitor Rent-Way, Inc. on 15 November 2006, for a price of approximately $600.3 million. At the time of the acquisition, Rent-Way was ranked number three in the rent-to-own industry with 782 stores in 34 states. The Rent-Way store acquisition program brought the store total to 3,535 stores. Given that the acquisition resulted in over-penetration in some markets, Rent-A-Center carried out the closing or merging of 282 stores between 2007 and 2009. With 123 Mexico stores as of December 2019, Rent-A-Center is continuing its expansion in Mexico.Launched in 2006, under the brand name RAC Acceptance, Rent-A-Center, Inc. operates lease-to-own kiosks within third-party retail locations across the country. The kiosks transitioned to the AcceptanceNOW brand in January 2014.Mark Speese retired as Rent-A-Center CEO at the end of January 2014. Rent-A-Center CFO Robert Davis served as CEO from January 2014 to January 2017, when Mark Speese returned as interim CEO.In January 2018, Mark Speese stepped down as CEO and was succeeded by former president Mitchell Fadel.In August 2019, Rent-A-Center completed the acquisition of Merchants Preferred, a nationwide provider of virtual lease-to-own services. After acquiring Merchants Preferred, Rent-A-Center unveiled its integrated retail partner offering, Preferred Lease. Preferred Lease is the combined business model of AcceptanceNOW's staffed lease-to-own business with Merchants Preferred's virtual lease-to-own business.