Rent-A-Center Unveils New Digital Platform to Accelerate Growth as the Lease-to-Own Landscape Evolves - Seite 3

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements generally can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "may," "will," "expect," "intend," "could," "estimate," "predict," "continue," "should," "anticipate," "believe," or “confident,” or the negative thereof or variations thereon or similar terminology and including, among others, statements concerning the expected benefits of the Company’s Preferred Dynamix platform, the launch of the Company’s Preferred Marketplace solution, potential demand from unbanked and underbanked consumers and from retail partners and other matters regarding its new platform and lease-to-own offering. The Company believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are accurate. However, there can be no assurance that such expectations will occur. The Company's actual future performance could differ materially and adversely from such statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to: (1) the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and related government and regulatory restrictions issued to combat the pandemic, including adverse changes in such restrictions, and impacts on (i) demand for the Company's lease-to-own products, (ii) the Company's retail partners, (iii) the Company's customers and their willingness and ability to satisfy their lease obligations, (iv) the Company's suppliers' ability to satisfy merchandise needs, (v) the Company's coworkers, (vi) the Company's financial and operational performance, and (vii) the Company's liquidity; (2) the general strength of the economy and other economic conditions affecting consumer preferences and spending; (3) factors affecting the disposable income available to the Company's current and potential customers; (4) the appeal of the Company’s new Preferred Dynamix platform to retail partners and consumers; (5) risks related to the Company's virtual lease-to-own business, including the Company's ability to continue to develop and successfully implement the necessary technologies; (6) exposure to potential operating margin degradation due to the higher cost of merchandise in the Company’s Preferred Lease offering and potential for higher merchandise losses; (7) the Company's ability to protect its proprietary intellectual property; (8) increased competition from traditional competitors, virtual lease-to-own competitors, online retailers and other competitors, including subprime lenders; (9) the Company's ability to identify and successfully market products and services that appeal to its current and future targeted customer segments; (10) consumer preferences and perceptions of the Company's brands; (11) changes in the enforcement of existing laws and regulations and the enactment of new laws and regulations adversely affecting the Company's business, including any legislative or regulatory enforcement efforts that seek to re-characterize store-based or virtual lease-to-own transactions as credit sales and to apply consumer credit laws and regulations to the Company's business; (12) the Company's compliance with applicable statutes or regulations governing its businesses; (13) information technology and data security costs; (14) the impact of any breaches in data security or other disturbances to the Company's information technology and other networks and the Company's ability to protect the integrity and security of individually identifiable data of its customers and employees; and (15) the other risks detailed from time to time in the Company's SEC reports, including but not limited to, its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019 and in its subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. Except as required by law, the Company is not obligated to publicly release any revisions to these forward-looking statements to reflect the events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.