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For Rent-A-Center, Kiosks Will Drive Growth

  • Cantor Fitzgerald reiterated a Buy rating and $45.00 price target on shares of Rent-A-Center Inc (NASDAQ: RCII) on Thursday.
  • According to the firm, “initiatives appear on track, while kiosks continue to drive growth.”
  • Shares of Rent-A-Center are down more than 2 percent on Thursday trading.
  • In a report issued Thursday, Cantor Fitzgerald analysts Laura Champine and Jason Smith explained that Rent-A-Center’s stock remains attractive to them as its labor and supply-chain initiatives remain on track, setting the company up for considerable cost savings next year.

    What Cantor Likes

    In addition, they assure Acceptance Now should drive sturdy top-line momentum in the near term. In fact, they estimate Acceptance Now same-store sales growth will surge 29 percent in the second half of 2015 and continue to grow at double digits through 2017.

    Related Link: August Retail Sales: The Early-Month Tax Holiday Labor Day Shift

    Products are now shipping through the company’s five distribution centers, and the analysts’ quarterly store visits and surveys suggest the shift to a flexible labor model is moving fast.

    Cantor continues to model for combined annual cost savings of approximately $50 million for the aforementioned initiatives, starting next year. Moreover, the experts believe this will lead to even further savings over time, as labor hours are optimized.

    Looking Forward

    Champine and Smith expect the kiosk business to be the main top-line growth driver over the years to come, but do not envision a deterioration in core same store sales, despite the fact that the segment has “lapped the July 2014 launch of smartphones.” In fact, they think “there is plenty of room for both manned kiosks and a virtual RTO platform to co-exist.”

    Taking all this into account, Rent-A-Center’s stock certainly looks alluring. Trading at only 8 times Cantor’s 2016 EPS estimate and 5 times 2016 EV/EBITDA estimate, valuation does not seem to reflect the company’s long-term margin expansion potential.

    Disclosure: Javier Hasse holds no positions in any of the securities mentioned above.

    Image Credit: Public Domain

    Latest Ratings for RCII

    Jul 2015

    Canaccord Genuity

    Maintains

    Buy

    Jul 2015

    Benchmark

    Maintains

    Buy

    May 2015

    Raymond James

    Upgrades

    Market Perform

    Outperform

    View More Analyst Ratings for RCII
    View the Latest Analyst Ratings

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    © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

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