Rent-A-Center Inc

F:RAC

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q4

[Operator]

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Fourth Quarter 2023 Upbound Group Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Jeff Kasta, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

[Jeff Chesnut, executive]

Good morning, and thank you all for joining us to discuss the company's performance for the fourth quarter and full year of 2023 as well as our outlook for 2024. We issued our earnings release this morning before the market opened, and the release and all related materials, including a link to the live webcast are available on our website at investor.ubound.com. On the call today from Upbound Group, we have Mitchell Fadel, our CEO; and Fahmi Karam, our CFO. As a reminder, some of the statements provided on this call are forward-looking and are subject to factors that could cause actual results to differ materially and adversely from our expectations. These factors are described in our earnings release as well as in the company's SEC filings. Upbound Group 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 and full year earnings release, which can be found on our website for a description of the non-GAAP financial measures and the reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP financial measures. Finally, Upbound Group is not responsible for and does not edit or guarantee the accuracy of our earnings teleconference transcripts provided by third parties. Please refer to our website for the only authorized webcast. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mitch.

[Mitchell E. Fadel, executive]

Thank you, Jeff, and good morning to everyone on the call today. I'll begin with a review of key highlights from 2023 as well as a discussion of our priorities for 2024, and then I'll hand it off to Fahmi for a more detailed review of our financial results and our financial outlook. After that, we will take some questions. As we reflect on our achievements throughout 2023, we believe our business took meaningful steps forward across both major segments and the new shared services holding company.At a Acima, we saw growth in both customer base and our retailer network. We also continue to develop our direct-to-consumer options with the virtual Acima marketplace, where our customers can shop at various merchants across the country, including unintegrated merchants to select eligible products and enter lease with Acima. Acima returned to year-over-year revenue growth in the fourth quarter driven by a 19% increase in GMV. The investments we have made in our technology and product offerings are beginning to pay off with GMV momentum throughout the fourth quarter. Importantly, we're driving GMV growth will remain disciplined on underwriting with the Acima losses stable throughout the year. Our disciplined and targeted approach to underwriting, combined with normalizing customer behavior drove material year-over-year profitability improvement with full year 2023 gross margins increasing 340 basis points and adjusted EBITDA margins increasing 490 basis points versus 2022.Rent-A-Center remain focused on offering a broader product lineup as well as an enhanced digital experience. We expanded our merchandise lineup with new products in our existing categories, while adding new product verticals such as jewelry and tires in the fourth quarter. Whether in the showroom or our extended aisle web channel, our product mix continues to grow and evolve to meet our customers' needs. These efforts are driving improvements in customer growth and retention with recent portfolio growth positioning Rent-A-Center for continued success in 2024. 2023 also included a significant milestone for our parent company, which was the announcement of our corporate name change to Upbound Group [indiscernible] our combined platform, which enables us to meet our customers wherever they are, whether in our stores, at leading retailers across the country or online. Creating the Upbound Group was part of our initiative to evaluate our current structure and how we manage the business to position us for long-term growth and adjust to the dynamic environment in which we operate. Through this initiative, we have developed an enhanced shared service model where the business units are supported by centralized resources to utilize best practices and include coworkers across the organization to drive productivity, creativity and efficiency. Our latest efforts in this new operating model include leveraging the capabilities of Acima underwriting and data scientists across the consolidated business, which is true promising early results that should benefit us in 2024 and beyond. 2023 marked a rebound year as both segments improved their loss rates relative to the challenging environment experienced in 2022. We're pleased with our risk and account management efforts and have proven our ability to grow our customer base while identifying targeted areas of risk and opportunities to maintain losses within an acceptable range. We remain committed to pursuing a balanced approach to our capital allocation as well as evidenced by the growth strategy we highlighted at our Investor Day last May, our focus on deleveraging the balance sheet and our ongoing returns of capital to our shareholders. Collectively, these initiatives produced a strong year, built the foundation for our future and positioned up-bound for additional profitable growth as we move into 2024. Let's now discuss our financial results on Slide 4. Our full year results included revenue of $4 billion, adjusted EBITDA of $456 million and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share of $3.55, each of which finished at or towards the high end of our increased guidance from the third quarter. Our full year free cash flow of approximately $147 million finished below our guidance, almost entirely driven by stronger-than-expected GMV growth at Acima and a replenishment of inventory at Rent-A-Center during the holiday season. Acima finished 2023 with the largest portfolio values we have seen in the last 2 years and Rent-A-Center had its largest ending portfolio balance since mid-2022. We're very pleased that both segments showed sequential and year-over-year portfolio growth through year-end. The growth experienced in the fourth quarter was driven by a number of factors, including the strategic initiatives from 2023 that I mentioned earlier. Both segments expanded and diversified their product offerings. At Acima, we continue to broaden our merchant partners while also working to generate more activity within our existing merchant network. Demand was above our expectations across most categories and produced 19% year-over-year GMV growth despite overall lower approval rates in the quarter than 2022. We also continue to test, learn and iterate as we work to expand our LTL solutions and incorporate credit offerings to further benefit our large customer base and leverage our new outbound operating model. Optimizations are ongoing to find the best outcomes for our customers, partners and business. We spent the second half of 2023 integrating systems with Concur Credit, formerly known as Genesis Financial, enhancing their risk models by leveraging our proprietary data and piloting both the general purpose credit card and the private label card. That work has positioned us to ramp up the business throughout 2024, after which we'll be able to further evaluate the timing and the size of the opportunity. We noted on our last call, we believe the non-prime consumer has been and we expect will continue to be resilient in this macro environment. From an underwriting standpoint, the continued performance of the broader economy helped guide our decisions on risk and led to full year loss rates and improved 40 basis points at Rent-A-Center and 130 basis points of the Acima. While certain aspects of the economy seem to have stabilized the consumer, it does remain under pressure, and we'll maintain our vigilant approach as we seek to balance top line growth objectives with prudent risk management utilizing our proprietary data analytics resources. In the second half of the year, we opportunistically repurchased 1.7 million shares, representing approximately 3% of shares outstanding. In 2024, we expect to continue to prioritize investments in our business, debt reduction and supporting our dividend. We may also capitalize on future windows with opportunistic share repurchases if we believe the near-term share price diverges from the long-term value we expect to create. On Slide 5, we can see the details behind our segment level performance. At Acima, year-over-year revenue trends improved throughout 2023, culminating in a return to top line growth in the fourth quarter. Acima revenues in 2023 were supported by year-over-year improvements in the number of total merchant locations, active locations, which are defined as locations with at least one lease transaction in the quarter and total funded leases, while the average ticket size was also up slightly. Acima commitment to providing first-class service and support to our retail partners has expanded our merchant network while also securing with select retailers elevated prominence or exclusivity for our offerings. GMV improved sequentially throughout the year, finishing 2023 with 19% year-over-year growth in the fourth quarter. The acceleration started in earnest late in the third quarter and was sustained throughout the holiday shopping season, and we believe this momentum is positioned Acima for strong growth in 2024. Acima loss rate declined 130 basis points from 10.6% in 2022 to 9.3% in 2023. We carefully adjusted our decisioning algorithms across the year in response to economic developments, and we'll continue to optimize our underwriting decisions to help produce an appropriate risk-adjusted return for the business. With the improvement in the loss rate relative to the prior year, Acima realized 35% year-over-year growth in adjusted EBITDA to $294 million, and that represents the largest full year adjusted EBITDA amount for sema in its history, and we look forward to building out such strong results. Rent-A-Center ended the year with its highest portfolio balance since the first half of 2022 and its highest customer count across the year. Our tactical marketing approach benefited our portfolio balance throughout the year with our 50 drops and 50 days program over the summer to celebrate our 50th anniversary and is similar to a more compressed campaign in the first part of the holiday season. Revenue and adjusted EBITDA were both down against difficult comps from 2022, but in line with our expectations for the year. The early part of the year was softer in terms of revenues and deliveries, but we saw favorable portfolio growth in the back half of the year due largely to improve customer retention and an uptick in the number of open leases. An important factor in Rent-A-Center's performance was the strength of the web channel, which hosted 31% more visits and 16% more orders than the prior year, with the share of revenue from that channel reaching 26%, up 100 basis points versus 2022. We continue to invest in our strong physical retail presence across local communities alongside our innovative digital footprint so that our customers may interact with us wherever and whenever they prefer. Rent-A-Center's losses improved 40 basis points in 2023 to 4.5% with steady sequential improvement from 4.8% in the first quarter to 4.2% in the fourth quarter. This favorability resulted from underwriting adjustments earlier in the year, combined with declining fuel prices for consumers and a reduction in inflationary pressures. Past due rates, which are an early indicator of potential loss rates finished 2023 flat to the prior year. Gross margins were generally consistent with our historical average with adjusted EBITDA and operating margins returning to pre-COVID levels last seen in 2019. Overall, we believe Rent-A-Center portfolio is well positioned for solid performance in 2024. Our priorities for 2024 build off the strategy we outlined at our Investor Day and the achievements we delivered in 2023. For Acima, we plan to continue to grow our top line with small- and medium-sized businesses as well as expand our push into large regional and national enterprise-level accounts. As we continue to widen our merchant network, we are equally committed to deepening penetration with our existing retail partners and generating more leases per merchant per month. The key to achieving that goal will be to offer superior differentiated service to our customers and our merchants, which we expect to drive higher rates of engagement and retention. For our customers, we are focused on having the right products available on the right terms that meet their needs. For our retailers, we are focused on providing proven and flexible solutions for their business and their customers while continuing to simplify the integration process. Acima overall value proposition combines the best of in-store and online shopping at leading retailers with point-of-sale solutions plus a staff model for higher traffic locations through the integration of our Acceptance Now business into the Acima platform. The migration of Now and the Acima infrastructure is expected to be complete by the end of the first quarter with the transition to the final two major retailers currently in process. As we discussed last quarter, the legacy Acima business will benefit from the enhanced virtual underwriting capabilities and customer experience as Acima -- we've seen that benefit from retailers that have already been converted. Our underwriting approach is built on an individualized assessment of each customer in each transaction within the context of the broader economic environment. Our robust decisioning is a key contributor to our profitability and margin profile, which will supplement in 2024 with a dedication to optimizing efficiencies across our organization. Rent-A-Center planned for 2024 builds off the momentum we built in the back half of 2023. In 2024, Rent-A-Center will focus on continuing to service customers with desirable name brand products and hard goods, consumer electronics, jewelry and automotive verticals. Additionally, as we add digital touch points with our customers, whether it be a text, e-mail, in-app or on the website, we can offer them relevant and time-limited promotions for exclusive deals and products. Our 12 drops of Christmas promotion created awareness drove interest and helped compound the seasonal lift we saw in December. We also deployed optimization to our online product recommendation engine that led to more relevant product suggestions, higher engagement and better user experiences. Throughout 2020, marketing and personalization efforts created the largest year in our history for Rencontr.com with web visits, as I mentioned, up 31% in web orders up 16% year-over-year. And we know that the combination of the right products and the right offers available across our physical and digital channels will enhance our value proposition to consumers. We expect our stores to remain at the center of our customer relationships where we are preparing for more growth in the online chain. An important element of this initiative is the rollout of a new point-of-sale system, which leverages updated technology to enhance scalability, resiliency, reporting and automation. As our online activity continues to grow and as we see surges in demand during promotional campaigns or holiday seasons, this infrastructure will help us deliver a reliable and seamless experience to our customers, whether in-store or online. The new platform will also allow us to receive more timely and granular data to make more informed and quicker decisions. The nationwide rollout of the new POS system is underway, and we're excited about laying the groundwork to improve our productivity and support our future growth with enhanced flexibility and capabilities. Turning now bound at the holding company level. Our priorities for 2024 will be driven as always, by our focus on creating sustainable long-term value. For our business segments, we'll continue to prioritize making our processes more efficient, ensuring our people and platforms collaborate to share best practices across our organization. In addition, we're committed to actively managing our expenses to protect and improve our margin profile. For our customers, we will continue to evaluate new solutions beyond LTO that elevate their financial opportunities and enable us to support them more often and with more insights. And for our shareholders, we'll continue to focus on thoughtfully allocating capital to fund investments in our business while supporting our dividend and deleveraging plans. And before I hand it off to Fahmi, I'd like to emphasize our proud with our whole team for their focus, their determination and delivering such strong results. Your unwavering commitment to supporting our customers and our merchants is what makes our company special. And I really, really appreciate it. And thank you. And with that, let me turn the call over to Fahmi.

[Fahmi Karam, executive]

Thank you, Mitch, and good morning, everyone. I'll start today with a review of the fourth quarter and 2023 results and to discuss our fiscal year 2024 guidance, after which we will take questions. Beginning on Page 7 of the presentation. Consolidated revenue for the fourth quarter was up 2.8% year-over-year with a Acima up 6.6% and Rent-A-Center down 1.7%. Rentals and fees revenues were up 4.3%, reflecting higher portfolio values for both businesses during the fourth quarter. Merchandise sales revenues decreased 5.6% due to fewer customers electing earlier purchase options. Consolidated gross margin was 50.3% and increased 30 basis points year-over-year, with improvements in both the Acima Segment and the Rent-A-Center Segment. Consolidated non-GAAP operating expenses, excluding skip stolen losses and depreciation and amortization were up mid-single digits, led by a low teen increase in general and administrative costs as a result of certain corporate investments in technology and people and higher incentive-based compensation tied to company performance in addition to mid-single-digit increases in both store labor and other store expenses. The consolidated skip-stolen loss rate was 7.5%, unchanged from the prior year period and in line with our expectations. On a sequential basis, the consolidated loss rate increased 50 basis points due to a modest uptick in the Acima segment, driven primarily by the legacy Acceptance Now business. Putting the pieces together, consolidated adjusted EBITDA of $107.6 million decreased 2.2% year-over-year as higher Acima segment EBITDA was offset by lower Rent-A-Center segment EBITDA and higher corporate costs. Adjusted EBITDA margin of 10.6% was down approximately 50 basis points compared to the prior year period, with approximately 20 basis points of margin contraction for Acima, approximately 10 basis points of contraction for Rent-A-Center and a 40 basis points increase in corporate cost as a percent of sales. I will provide more detail on the segment results in a moment. Looking below the line, fourth quarter net interest expense was $28 million compared to $26 million in the prior year due to approximately 200 basis points year-over-year increase in variable benchmark rates that affected our variable rate debt, which was approximately $881 million at quarter end. The effective tax rate on a non-GAAP basis was 24.6% compared to 25.8% for the prior year period. The diluted average share count was 55.5 million shares in the quarter. GAAP loss per share was $0.21 in the fourth quarter compared to earnings per share of $0.05 in the prior year period. After adjusting for special items that we believe do not reflect the underlying performance of our business, non-GAAP diluted EPS was $0.81 in the fourth quarter of 2023 compared to $0.86 in the prior year period. Due to stronger-than-expected GMV growth at Acima in the fourth quarter, we deployed our fourth quarter free cash flow and an additional $37 million toward inventory investments compared to $44 million of free cash flow generated in the prior year period. In the fourth quarter, we distributed a quarterly dividend of $0.34 per share, and we repurchased approximately 800,000 shares in the quarter. We finished the fourth quarter with a net leverage ratio of approximately 2.7x, up from 2.5x in the third quarter. As previously reported, we increased the dividend to $0.37 per share with our January 2024 payment. Drilling down to the segment results starting on Page 8. For Acima GMV year-over-year trends continued to improve sequentially in the fourth quarter, and we returned to positive year-over-year GMV growth. GMV increased 19% year-over-year in the fourth quarter, an improvement from a 1.4% decrease in the third quarter. GMV growth was above our expectations and was driven by year-over-year growth in some key underlying drivers with active merchant locations up mid-single digits, applications up over 20% due to strong demand and average ticket size up high single digits. Those tailwinds were partially offset by lower approval rates across all major categories. The value of assets under lease was up mid-teens, both year-over-year and sequentially and was the highest level since the fourth quarter of 2021. Revenues increased 6.6% year-over-year, including a 9.6% increase in rental and fee revenue. Merchandise sales revenue decreased 3.9% year-over-year due to fewer customers electing the earliest purchase option with a mix of those transactions for the fourth quarter returning to pre-pandemic levels. Skip soon losses for the Acima virtual platform were 7.9%, 10 basis points higher sequentially and 10 basis points lower year-over-year. Losses for the legacy Acceptance Now staff business were in the double digits and drove the sequential increase in the Acima consolidated results in line with our expectations. We have continued tightening underwriting at A Now to optimize performance. And more importantly, we are in the process of completing the migration of some of our larger merchant partners from the A Now underwriting decision engine over to the Acima platform. We expect to finish this transition in the first quarter of 2024. This will strengthen our underwriting capabilities and should reduce loss rates as lease cohorts from the legacy system wind down throughout the year. On a combined basis, including Acima Virtual and A Now, the loss rate was 9.9% of sales, a 100 basis point increase from the prior year period and 50 basis points higher than the third quarter. Operating costs, excluding skip-stolen losses were up approximately $8.4 million in the fourth quarter or 120 basis points as a percent of sales due to higher labor costs as well as increased marketing investments. Adjusted EBITDA of $75 million was up 4.7% year-over-year primarily due to a 6.6% increase in revenue that was partially offset by a 3.6% increase in cost of goods sold. Adjusted EBITDA margin of 14.8% decreased 20 basis points year-over-year, while gross margins expanded approximately 190 basis points. For the Rent-A-Center segment at year-end, the lease portfolio value was up 1.5% year-over-year, an improvement of 420 basis points from the end of the third quarter. Total segment revenues decreased 1.7% year-over-year and improved from a 4.2% decrease in the third quarter. The decrease in revenues was driven by a 12.2% decrease in merchandise sales due primarily to fewer customers electing early purchase options compared to the prior year period. Fourth quarter rental and fees revenue declined 80 basis points, an improvement from a 3.2% decline in the third quarter. Same-store sales decreased 1.6% year-over-year in the fourth quarter compared to a 4% decrease in the third quarter. Skip-stolen losses continue to improve, driven by ongoing underwriting and account management efforts, decreasing 160 basis points year-over-year and 10 basis points sequentially to 4.2%. Past due rates also decreased year-over-year with 30-day past due rates averaging 3.1% for the fourth quarter compared to 3.5% for the prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the fourth quarter decreased 10 basis points year-over-year to 14.5%, primarily due to the deleveraging effect of lower revenues on less variable costs. This is reflected by a 190 basis point year-over-year increase in the ratio of non-GAAP operating expenses, excluding skip-stolen losses as a percent of revenue, even though expense dollars decreased year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA margin decreased 50 basis points from the third quarter, primarily reflecting normal seasonality in addition to higher marketing and labor expenses. For the Mexico segment, adjusted EBITDA was higher year-over-year and Franchise segment adjusted EBITDA was lower. Non-GAAP corporate expenses were approximately 12% higher compared to the prior year, primarily due to higher projected performance-based compensation than in 2022. On a consolidated basis, the company finished 2023 on a strong note, meeting or exceeding the high end of the initial full year guidance that we provided in February 2023 for revenue, adjusted EBITDA and non-GAAP diluted EPS. Full year consolidated revenues of $4 billion were at the high end of our initial guidance, while adjusted EBITDA of $456 million was approximately 15% higher than the original midpoint. The non-GAAP diluted EPS of $3.55 was 29% higher than the midpoint of initial guidance, significantly exceeding our expectations. Let's shift to the 2024 financial outlook. Note that references to growth or decreases generally refer to year-over-year changes unless otherwise stated. For the full year, we expect to generate revenue of $4 billion to $4.2 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $455 million to $485 million, which excludes stock-based compensation of approximately $25 million. We are projecting consistent adjusted EBITDA margins with 2023. Fully diluted non-GAAP earnings per share is expected to be $3.55 to $4, which assumes a fully diluted average share count of 55.7 million shares with no share repurchases throughout the year. We are also projecting $100 million to $130 million of free cash flow, net interest expense of $105 million to $110 million and an effective tax rate on a non-GAAP basis of 25.5% to 26.5%. We do not have share repurchases or M&A activity included in our guidance for 2024. Our forecast assumes a macroeconomic backdrop consistent with current conditions, along with 3 rate cuts by the Fed across the year. As we experienced in the fourth quarter of 2023, the free cash flow range will ultimately be determined by the level of consumer demand and resulting growth in GMV and the portfolio. The cash flows dedicated to investing in profitable leases reduces our overall free cash flow in the short term but should support stronger results later as we benefit from a larger portfolio. For the Acima segment, we expect GMV to increase mid- to high single digits, with a high single-digit increase in revenue. We expect gross margins to contract from the prior year, especially in the first half of the year due to a more normalized tax season and the impact of promotions offered in the fourth quarter. Consolidated Acima losses for the year are expected to be relatively flat to the prior year with higher losses in the first half of the year than the second half due to the elevated legacy A Now portfolio, which will wind down as the year progresses. Adjusted EBITDA margin is expected to be in the mid-teens range, consistent with 2023. For the Rent-A-Center segment, we expect the portfolio, revenues and same-store sales to be flat to up low single digits. Loss rates are projected to be stable to 2023 levels. Adjusted EBITDA margin is expected to be in the mid-teens range, consistent with 2023. We expect the Mexico and franchising businesses will generate similar results to 2023, and we expect corporate costs to hold steady as a percentage of consolidated revenue year-over-year. As we are still testing and learning with the new general purpose and private label credit cards, this forecast does not include any meaningful contribution from those initiatives in 2024. As we proceed through the year, we will continue to evaluate our progress and the results stemming from our new partnership. The 2024 plan does not incorporate the benefit of any material trade down. However, we are closely monitoring lenders that sit above us in retailer waterfalls and specifically the proposed rule changes around credit card late fees. If the CFPB's new rule is finalized as proposed, then credit card late fees could decline meaningfully. One possible reaction from card issuers would be to manage credit more tightly, which may cause effective consumers and retailers to explore alternatives, including the LTO offering. This potential trade down could cause more consumers with a stronger and more resilient credit profile relative to the traditional LTO customer base to apply for a lease. Although our guidance for 2024 does not include any meaningful impact from trade down, whether from a typical recession or regulatory actions, such developments could represent a potential tailwind to our business. In terms of the first quarter, total consolidated revenue is expected to be up low to mid-single digits year-over-year. We expect losses at the Rent-A-Center segment to be in line with the first quarter of 2023. Acima consolidated losses are expected to be consistent with the fourth quarter. Adjusted EBITDA margins are expected to be in the high single digits range. Interest expense, tax rate and share count are expected to be similar to the fourth quarter of 2023, resulting in a non-GAAP EPS range of $0.70 to $0.80. We expect consolidated adjusted EBITDA margins to expand following the first quarter due to normal seasonality coming off tax season and higher earlier purchase options and improvement in losses at both segments, especially at Acima the back book from the legacy A Now business winds down and the CMA GMV growth throughout 2024. Moving to capital allocation. Our overall strategy remains the same. Our proven business model generates strong operating cash flows over time and our disciplined capital allocation framework deploys it in support of our strategic priorities. Our top priority remains investing in the business to position us for ongoing success. We will continue to invest in delivering a lease portfolio that meets our return objectives while investing in new channels like the credit card partnership and in our digital capabilities that improve the customer and retailer experience and further enhance our competitive position. We are committed to our strong regular dividend and strengthening our balance sheet by reducing debt over time. In addition, we will evaluate other strategic deployments of capital, including opportunistic share repurchases and inorganic growth opportunities as they arise. Based on the strength of our results and our outlook for 2024, we recently raised our dividend by $0.03 per quarter. We expect the balance of our free cash flow this year will go towards deleveraging as we advance towards our long-term target net leverage ratio of 1.5x. The net leverage ratio of 2.7x as of year-end reflected the impact of $69 million of debt pay down across the year and an increase in working capital needs at year-end to support GMV growth. Concluding on Slide 12. On February 27, we will celebrate the 1-year anniversary of our new Upbound ticker on the NASDAQ Exchange. As Mitch stated last year, our rebranding represents a transition to an enterprise operating structure that will enhance and coordinate our collective efforts on strategic planning, operations, risk management, innovations and digital investments. We have made headway across each of those areas, and those gains have set the business on a positive trajectory going into this year. We feel confident in our current competitive position and underwriting capabilities that can balance the uncertainty in the market while producing strong margins at both of our major business segments. In 2024, we expect our continued customer service focus, disciplined approach to risk management and hyper focus on cost controls will help us deliver sustainable growth and strong risk-adjusted returns. Our leadership team is optimistic on the opportunities ahead of us and is confident in our ability to execute on our objectives for the year ahead. Thank you for your time this morning. Operator, you may now open the line for questions.

[Operator]

And as a reminder, to ask a question, you need to press on your telephone and wait for me to be announced with us, the roster on moment for first question -- our first question will come from the line of Kyle Joseph from Jefferies.

[Kyle Joseph, analyst]

Just on the free cash flows in '23, it looks like it came in a little bit below your guidance. Is that really just a function of the better growth at Acima or the better GMV growth at Acima?

[Fahmi Karam, executive]

Kyle, yes, that's what's causing a lower free cash flow for the year. As we stated, the GMV came in above our expectations. And so you'll have an impact on the short term on free cash flow, but will benefit from the longer -- in the long run from a higher portfolio.

[Kyle Joseph, analyst]

Okay. It's a good segue. Obviously, yes, GMV was really strong in the fourth quarter. Is that kind of the new run rate? Was there any sort of onetime things related to holiday sales? I'm just trying to connect GMV in the fourth quarter versus your revenue outlook at the segment.

[Mitchell E. Fadel, executive]

Kyle, this is Mitch. I wouldn't call 19% the new run rate, although I will tell you, it's held up really well going into this year. Our guidance for -- and I'll come back to that in a second, guidance for '24 is mid- to high single digits on GMV for Acima. So we certainly expect to continue. In fact, it will be higher than that at the beginning of the year. It will get a little lower as we comp over the plus 19% in the fourth quarter. And in fact, January was in the 15% range in February is looking to repeat that so far, obviously, February is not done yet, but we're talking about 15% in January and looking about the same so far, at least in February. So really strong momentum we're seeing mid- to high single-digit GMV growth for the year because it will get a little tougher as we get later in the year. But when you comping over '19 in the fourth quarter, but really strong obviously, it's a 19% really strong so far this year, and we're really happy with the demand and the overall performance of Acima keeping delinquencies flat with all that growth and good underwriting, everything we just talked about in the prepared comments, but a lot of momentum, a lot of new merchants. In fact, we -- I think it was on one of the slides or it is on one of the slides we added 6% merchant growth.Our productivity per merchant went way up in the quarter, about 25% increase in productivity per merchant, our direct-to-consumer almost doubled the business from last year in the fourth quarter. Our e-com did double in the quarter, smaller numbers, but those numbers doubled. So every aspect of their business is going really well.

[Kyle Joseph, analyst]

Got it. Yes, that's great. And then last one for me, and I can pop back in the queue, but just talk about what merchandise you're seeing really strong growth in Acima and then some -- or others where you're not seeing the growth? Is it really kind of consumer electronics? Is it tire? And then how Furniture and Mattress has been trending as well? And that's the last one for me.

[Mitchell E. Fadel, executive]

Sure, Kyle. Yes, in the fourth quarter, we had great growth in every segment, every category that we're in. Even the furniture that's obviously had a lot of headwinds we grew in all of them. All the ones you mentioned, everything we're in. It was pretty consistent across the board. Of course, the -- again, it's not just a matter of our current merchants just more productivity within the current merchants. We're adding a lot of merchants. Like I said, 6% growth and more coming in the first quarter. So adding merchants and getting more productivity in each category is driving those numbers.

[Fahmi Karam, executive]

Yes. And maybe just to add to that, Tal, we saw it across the board. As Mitch said, of course, in the fourth quarter, you'll have a run-up in jewelry and consumer electronics being one of the more riskiers segments for us, we're able to make sure that we're monitoring that from an underwriting standpoint. But even in Furniture, we talked about apps being up overall by 20% in the furniture category. It was up over 30% in the fourth quarter, and that's a reflection of adding merchants and going exclusive on ashley.com, which is one of our biggest accounts. And doing that, it gives us more apps to look at. We actually had lower approval rates in the quarter. So we were able to be a little bit more selective and still grow GMV year-over-year.

[Mitchell E. Fadel, executive]

Yes, I think that's a great add-on. That's growth with lower approval rates, the 19% growth, so.

[Kyle Joseph, analyst]

Great. Very helpful.

[Operator]

Our next question will come from the line of Bobby Griffin from Raymond James.

[Robert Griffin, analyst]

Congrats on a good end to the year. I guess is, I want to maybe just unpack the GMV growth in Acima a little bit more if possible and spend a few moments there. Look, the 19%, a pretty notable slip from trends. And I would say our checks, at least from the investor side, is that retail was just okay, probably during 4Q and maybe even in the categories you guys do as a little less than okay. So can you maybe unpack what you saw there? And what do you think is driving the success to flip this pretty meaningfully here in the fourth quarter?

[Mitchell E. Fadel, executive]

Sure, Bobby. Good question. I think at the end of the day, we're taking share just to cut to the chase, when I say we're taking share. There's different ways of taking share. You can win an account, take it away from someone else, you can get in a better position with that account because you because you're servicing them better or the flow is better, the e-com flow, whatever -- so you can get in first position with retailers that have more than one LTO option in the store. We had some where we got exclusivity in the store. We had some where we took the account from a competitor. We're -- so it's a combination of all those things. I think when you sum it all up, we're taking share. And one of the big successes of Acima, as you know, Bobby, Acima has a fantastic. One of the things we loved years ago, 3 years ago last week when we acquired a Acima their sales team out in the field. And with a strong sales team is the way the company built with that diverse sales team and really go after the regional and SMB accounts. And of course, we've got the enterprise team, too. So we've got a multi-pronged diverse approach where this fantastic sales team between the people out in the field and some inside sales support here over 100 people, probably about 125 people in total. And they just keep adding accounts and servicing those accounts well, and we just keep adding not only adding merchants, but getting in better position with merchants being first one they run. And as long as we approve that customer, then they don't run them through anybody else, things like that, taking accounts, taking market share. And then we're -- we got some good regional wins. We've got some national wins on the board, some bigger accounts like Ashley that Fahmi mentioned, the -- we got the enterprise team going after the big accounts. But as you know, the biggest accounts are such a long sales cycle, we don't just rely on going after those big accounts. We're growing merchants whether we get a big account or not. We don't rely on that. We're in the conversation with every one of the large accounts. But like I said, the sales cycle is so darn long. We don't put all our ex in that basket. We have much more of a diversified growth strategy. Our -- and that the sales team is one of our differentiators. There's other differentiators that, that sales team uses like the options we have for retail partners to be virtual or they can -- we can staff stores if they're high enough volume, they can do either or some stores can be staffed. Some can be virtual. We've got a great e-com platform -- we've got full online capabilities for any retailer that wants to use the full online checkout capabilities. I mean for any retailer that wants to use it and a lot of them do. And then the direct-to-consumer, the Acima marketplace doubled year-over-year. So I think when you put it all together, we've got a lot of diverse growth vehicles, not everything all-in-one basket, and we're taking market share.

[Robert Griffin, analyst]

Very good. That's helpful. And I guess, secondly for me, I don't want to call 1 quarter a huge flip in trend. But just hypothetically speaking, if this does kind of build from here, can you talk a little bit about the scale of the organization and kind of will you need to scale up for this type of growth from an OpEx standpoint? Or is the organization at a good scale, really on both sides of the business, the core Rent-A-Center stores as well as the Acima that if we start to see kind of more sticky, meaningful GMV growth, you guys can handle it and what would it kind of flow through at?

[Mitchell E. Fadel, executive]

I think we're at a good scale. We mentioned -- Fahmi mentioned what we saw about the 2024 outlook, we were able to keep the -- by building scale and by adding things, a lot of technical technology investments and so forth the -- we're able to keep our percentage, our corporate overhead percentage, the same as last year, which I think going forward, when you start talking about 25 and beyond, we talk about leveraging the revenue growth, obviously, this year, keeping that percentage flat and then seeing leverage down the road as the revenue grows.But I think this year, we've got the investments already in there, keeping the percentage the same because with revenue growth, you should actually see it go down a little bit. But because of some of those investments we've had to make, they're in there. And so I don't think you would have to go over that. And I think actually, if you want to look longer term, like '25 and '26, you'd be talking leverage against that number.

[Fahmi Karam, executive]

[indiscernible] Sorry about that, the high growth that we're talking about, especially at Acima obviously, being a virtual business, you can really scale that business up without adding a lot of expenses.

[Robert Griffin, analyst]

Very good. Yes. That's great to hear. I appreciate the details. Best of luck here finishing out the first quarter.

[Operator]

Our next question will come from the line of Brad Thomas from KeyBanc Capital Markets.

[Bradley Thomas, analyst]

I wanted to kick off with maybe one more follow-up on the GMV dynamic that seems so it seems to have such a great momentum here right now. Wondering if you cut the data and you look at how many are new customers to Acima versus repeat, perhaps who's new to rent to own or if you have any data, if they've been a rack customer previously. Just curious about that dynamic.

[Mitchell E. Fadel, executive]

Yes, there's not as much overlap between the Acima customer and the Rent-A-Center rcustomers you might guess. It is. It's certainly -- of course, as we look at the demographics, there is a bit of a spread between them, the customer going in shopping for retail and getting denied or maybe not having traditional financing options. There is a pretty big difference between them. And we don't see a whole lot of overlap. We see -- as you probably know, Brad, the repeat business is extremely strong in Rent-A-Center. Of course, you get every product under one roof at Rent-A-Center -- and it's a little more -- the demographic is a little different than the Acima customers. So depending on the year, we see as much as 70% repeat business in Rent-A-Centers about half that from a repeat business standpoint, something we're always trying to grow because they -- again, it's more diversified. If they got tires somewhere they got furniture somewhere. It may be a few years before they come back and use Acima. We on account repeat business if it's within a period of time. I think its 12 months when we counted as repeat business. So we do get a lot of repeat business. I guess the short answer is we get a lot of it more at Rent-A-Center than we do it a semi virtue of the way the business models work. But I think where the expansion of the consumer base -- well, let me put it this way, if 35% roughly of the Acima customers, our repeat business, obviously, 65% is new. So a lot of new customers coming through the pipeline more so into Acima than Rent-a-Center because we're getting them through all those retail partnerships. You're talking about over 35,000 retail partner stores that you could do a lease in the Acima not to mention the direct-to-consumer stuff. And I'd say 35,000 and then a website like Wayfair is one customer, right? So there's an awful lot of places that LTL is becoming much more popular and much more mainstream through these retail partnerships. And a lot of new people are being exposed to it, absolutely. And I think especially if the economy gets any worse going forward, even more people will get exposed to it, more people will need it. Fahmi mentioned the credit card fee late fee kind of thing could affect some accrual rates above us, and we may get more trade down going forward. We didn't build that in, but it certainly could be a tailwind for us. So a lot of people need LTO and a lot of people getting exposed to it every day.

[Bradley Thomas, analyst]

Absolutely. That's helpful, Mitch. And just to ask a question about underwriting as you think about the segments. Can you just talk a little bit more about how you feel about the underwriting and potential needs to tighten on the horizon versus opportunities to maybe loosen?

[Fahmi Karam, executive]

Yes, Brad, the underwriting, and we've talked about it a few times. It's a continuous process of us to evaluate where we are, where the market is and where we are compared to our competitors. And it really was a good sign for us to be able to really reduce the approval rates in the fourth quarter and still have that growth. From an underwriting standpoint, we try to optimize our decisioning for EBITDA dollars. And the yield that we've seen specifically at Acima over the last 12 months has given us the opportunity to be very opportunistic on where we want to lean in.And also, we're very confident we can identify pockets of risk going forward. But that high -- the higher yields allow us the ability to absorb potentially higher losses down the road if the macro worsens and still generate those mid-teens. So we feel good about our capabilities to manage it and produce the returns that we're looking for.

[Mitchell E. Fadel, executive]

Yes. And the other exciting thing about the underwriting is not just as the Acima. We mentioned that we're taking our legacy business. We only have two more large retailers to convert, and that will be done by the end of the first quarter. I think it's -- so that we're excited about the early results of accounts we've already switched over there. Again, getting in line compared to the underwriting that Acceptance Now was using, and we're excited about that because after we get through, as Fahmi mentioned, after we get the first half of the year, the loss has come down from where they are now based on the consolidated losses come down after those accounts we run through. And then we'd have all of it A Now on it. Looking at some of those best practices, some of the great tools that the Acima uses and using them on the Rent-A-Center side as we get into 2024 is exciting. So there's some potential tailwinds on underwriting. We talk a lot about now, but even on Rent-A-Center using some of that same team to influence and put some of the same tools on rent a center that cannot -- only most people only think of underwriting well, its better underwriting and reduce losses. But one of the things you learn when you really dig in, is better underwriting also finds you green shoots of things you can approve that maybe you weren't approving before. So it can also drive volume because if it's so much more sophisticated than targeted, you don't have to cut out whole swaths of a particular group or if a customer looks like this, you cut off the whole group, a particular Vantage Score or whatever, whereas -- and when it's better sophisticated and targeted, you certainly can -- maybe you can improve half of what you would have turned down in that group that's got a particular Vantage Score or whatever. So it can find your volume, too. So we're excited about some of those things once we get acceptance now done of how can --some of those same tools help Rent-A-Center drive more volume with lower losses as well. So the underwriting is a real -- there's two things that that we really loved about Acima 3 years ago when we bought it about the organization that Aaron already built with the underwriting capabilities, and we're seeing that. And then the sales team I was talking about earlier, the way it was such a diverse growth vehicle versus only going after a certain type of account. We've got competitors that only that we -- and there's some good competitors that go after just the SMB accounts. And then there's other competitors that only -- we only compete with when we're going after the big accounts. And -- but we're in all of them, whether it's one teams on the small accounts and other teams on the regional accounts and other team on the big accounts, the enterprise accounts, you'd call them -- and even though we see different competitors in each one of those buckets, we're the only one in every one of those games, and it feels really good. And that's the -- a seamless built on that small SMB business, we've added the enterprise team, and it's -- those were the two things we loved about it was the way they approach the sales and that the great sales team, some of the great people they have on that team and have had since the beginning as well as the underwriting, and we're seeing the fruits of all those things now.

[Bradley Thomas, analyst]

That's very helpful. And if I could squeeze in one more here, just on how to think about gross margin and modeling it for the year. Fahmi, it strikes me that probably mix towards the Acima away from RAC would be one of the more powerful drivers just in terms of how the margin rate on a consolidated basis plays out. But anything else we should think about as we think about baking the cake on the gross margin for the year?

[Fahmi Karam, executive]

Yes. I think that's right between the mix of Rent-A-Center and Acima for looking into 2024 for Rent-A-Center, expect to have the gross margins to be relatively flat year-over-year. For Acima, the guide has us coming down a little bit year-over-year, especially in the first half of the year. We have some tough comps in Q1 and Q2 compared to 2023. And we talked about the early payout options and fewer customers electing that. We expect that to continue this year, but maybe not to the same degree. More normalized. And if you look at Q1 of last year, the gross margin expanded almost 500 basis points or over 500 basis points. And so we don't expect to do that again in the first quarter of 2024, but it will be close to that. So we expect it to be slightly down from that. So it's more of a cadence of first half being a little bit lower than 2023 and then catching up in the second half of the year.

[Operator]

Our next question will come from the line of Anthony Chukumba from Loop Capital Markets.

[Anthony Chukumba, analyst]

I wanted to focus just a little bit on the Rent-A-Center business. You had a nice sequential improvement in terms of comps. And you mentioned in your prepared remarks some new product categories, jewelry and tires. I guess my question is, how much do you think the jewelry and tires contributed to that sequential improvement in your fourth quarter Rent-A-Center comp? And also related to that, do you think that credit tightening above you contributed to either the Rent-A-Center comp improvement or the really strong GMV growth in Acima.

[Mitchell E. Fadel, executive]

Sure, Anthony, Rent-A-Center those new products that we put in, in the fourth quarter, pretty really small contribution. I'd give them a little bit of credit, but not much, quite honestly. But a little bit, and obviously, we expect them to grow in 2024. But it was pretty late in the year. So the thing probably helped Rent-A-Center more than that is, overall, the extended aisle that we added to all year adding products in not necessarily new categories, but new, a lot more product offerings on the website, where instead of going through the -- let me give you an example, the 20 living rooms, maybe that we had on a fast ship to our stores that our stores could get on a weekly basis from, say, a Ashley Furniture from the manufacturing side of Ashley furniture. Now the customer can shop all of Ashley's products on the website and special order anything on there through our Rent-A-Center store. So I think the extended aisle on there, there's so many more like 6,000 more products or something. I mean it's a huge number of more products on there. And that's really where the growth of Rent-A-Center is coming from. And with -- as I mentioned in my prepared comments, over 30% more web visits, 16% more orders coming through there. So -- and that's what tighter underwriting as well. So when I say orders coming through, those are orders -- those are approved orders coming through, and we got 16% more. So I think the extended aisle is more the story in Rent-A-Center. I think certainly, the demand is there, the consumer is still under pressure. And the good part about that business, the reason it turned 50 years old last year is when the consumer is under pressure, -- we get more trade down. And when things are better, we get better performance from our base, and that's the resiliency of the business of why it goes very well through any cycle. But I think the second part of your question, yes, I think tightening above us has to be helping. When we look at Vintage Scores and people ask us all the time about trade down, we saw it early last year in the scores coming through, then it kind of leveled off. We've actually seen -- we've seen them go back up just a couple of points, though, in the last, say, be 6, 8 weeks. So they went up early last year, leveled off. Now we're seeing them tick up again a little bit here recently. So yes, and then it's not all just about that score either, right? Some of it mindset. If the customer goes in to Rent-A-Center because they're not -- they don't want to commit maybe to a contract and they just rent it and see what happens in their -- to their finances over the next few months. So it's a much more flexible way to acquire things, obviously, because you gave a return at any time. It's a much more flexible way to acquire things for your home than a revolving account or finance contract where you can't just give it back to the retailer. So I think trade down is part of the story, not just when you look at Vantage Score or Credit Scores or something like that, I think mentality is part is always part of the trade down when the economy worsened. So yes, I think that's certainly part of it in both the SMA side and the run center side. ren

[Anthony Chukumba, analyst]

Got it. No, that's a helpful perspective. And then just real quickly, you mentioned going exclusive with Ashley Furniture. Can you just remind us, I guess, how many LTO providers they have previously? And when did you go exclusive? And do you think that was a meaningful contributor to Acima GMV growth?

[Mitchell E. Fadel, executive]

Yes. On the -- of course, it actually also has a lot of licensees. So when we say exclusive with them, we're talking about corporate stores which I think there's over 100 corporate stores. We were splitting them. Those two LTOs in there before. Now there's just us and the website was split between two LTOs and now it's just us. So we've been with them a long time, but we are splitting the account, and now it's 100% or I don't know the number. I mean, I imagine it was probably worth a couple of points to the 19%, though two or three looking at family 2% or 3% probably out of '19. It wasn't -- it's not insignificant -- so -- but it's not the whole thing either. There's a lot of growth out there.

[Operator]

And our next question will come from the line of Alex Fuhrman from Craig-Hallum.

[Alex Fuhrman, analyst]

Congratulations on a really strong year. Mitch, you mentioned that you've been having some success adding merchants to Acima that aren't fully integrated with the platform. Can you talk a little bit about how that works and what categories that you've been able to do that in? And just over time, how much growth could that potentially unlock for you?

[Mitchell E. Fadel, executive]

Well, you're asking me to get technical now, Alex. But I'll do the best that can. Yes, the -- when I mentioned the unaffiliated merchants, I'm talking about the Acima marketplace, where you can go on there and you'll see a partner, we were just talking about -- as you'll see a partner like Ashley where we're certainly integrated with them and so forth. Then you'll see another partner on their like Best Buy, where we're not fully integrated with them. We don't -- we're not on their website, but yet our customers can shop Best Buy and put it on the [indiscernible]. If they go at it through the Acima marketplace. So we can take unaffiliated partners like that and put them on there. So when you say what's the growth potential of that, I mean, it's almost any retailer out there. The largest retailers in the world, you can put on there and then our customers can shop there. So we've got some already that are unaffiliated. I mentioned the Best Buy in. There's a few others on there that are unaffiliated but -- and more will be added really every quarter. And of course, we were partial to the ones we're affiliated with to put on there as well. Not every single one of our partners wants to be on there. They just rather us be their partner in their stores, but most do in -- so we put them on there. But -- and you can find any of our partners on there, even local partners do something we call Find a store. So if you're shopping in one particular area, you can find one of our partners there. But as far as nationwide ones, to answer your question, really, the sky the limit as far as how much we can add there. Like I said, it doubled in the fourth quarter, the GMV from it.

[Fahmi Karam, executive]

Yes. And Alex, we think about it as just giving customers more choices and more options. And we really want to be fulsome in our product category lineup. We want to make sure they have access to all the major categories, whether it's furniture, electronics, appliances and all of the above. So when we look out to round out the unintegrated with the integrated, it's making sure that we have all the product categories kind of filled out.

[Alex Fuhrman, analyst]

Terrific guys. That's really helpful.

[Operator]

Our next question will come from the line of Hale Holden from Barclays.

[Hale Holden, analyst]

On the potential to change credit card late fees, does that change your outlook for the private label credit cards that you're looking at the spring or the economics around that potential launch?

[Fahmi Karam, executive]

No, it doesn't. I think all of the credit card providers are finding ways to maybe offset some of those rule changes and our partnership is no exception to that. We're even more bullish about the opportunity just based on the feedback we're getting from some of our retailers and specifically the more -- the larger retailers around the benefit of having 2 products under one umbrella and one integration. So if anything, we're more bullish about the opportunity.

[Operator]

And I'm not showing any further questions in the queue. I'd like to turn the call back over to Mitch Fadel for any closing remarks.

[Mitchell E. Fadel, executive]

Thank you, Victor, and thank you, everyone, for your continued interest in our business. As we discussed today, we're awfully proud of what we achieved last year. We look forward to updating you across the year on our progress in 2024. We certainly believe our team's focus on the customer and on our retail partners and new partners and existing partners and so forth will continue to create opportunities for growth that outbound whether you're talking to see more, the Rent-A-Center side and create value for our investors. So we appreciate you. We appreciate all of our hard working teammates out there in the field. And with that, I'll just wish everyone a great day. And operator, you can now disconnect. Thank you, everyone.

[Operator]

Thank you for participating in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.