
ATLANTA – Lease-purchase specialist Aaron’s Inc. provided investors an updated third quarter outlook on Thursday, predicting that consolidated revenues will be between $1 billion and $1.02 billion and non-GAAP earnings per share will fall between $1.40 and $1.50.
More than half of the revenues, or between $575 million and $585 million, are expected in the Progressive Leasing segment in the third quarter ending Sept. 30. Year-over-year invoice growth for the third quarter is expected to be in the low-to-mid single-digit percentage range, which the company said is higher than the second quarter of 2020.
“The company believes Progressive has adequately reserved for the future impact of COVID-related write-offs and, at this time, does not anticipate incremental COVID-related charges in the third quarter,” the company said in a Sept. 10 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. It also noted that write-offs for the third quarter are expected to be between 1.5% and 2.5%.
Meanwhile, the Aaron’s Business expects revenues between $415 million and $425 million and same store revenue growth between 4% and 6%. Write-offs for the third quarter are expected to be between 3% and $4%.
“While there remains uncertainty related to the pandemic, including unemployment, government stimulus and global supply chain challenges, with two months behind us, we are in a position to update the market on our expectations for the third quarter,” said John Robinson, Aaron’s, Inc. president and CEO.
“Our businesses are performing very well in the quarter, with strong customer payment activity and lease portfolio performance driving better than expected financial results. At the same time, new lease originations continue to face some headwinds due in part to our more conservative approach to lease decisioning and pandemic-related issues, including supply chain disruptions. Based on our results to date, we are raising our third quarter outlook.”
I’m Tom Russell and have worked at Furniture/Today since August 2003. Since then, I have covered the international side of the business from a logistics and sourcing standpoint. Since then, I also have visited several furniture trade shows and manufacturing plants in Asia, which has helped me gain perspective about the industry in that part of the world. As I continue covering the import side of the business, I look forward to building on that knowledge base through conversations with industry officials and future overseas plant tours. From time to time, I will file news and other industry perspectives online and, as always, welcome your response to these Web postings.