Rent-A-Center: 1Q Earnings Snapshot

PLANO, Texas (AP) _ Rent-A-Center Inc. (RCII) on Wednesday reported first-quarter profit of $49.3 million.

On a per-share basis, the Plano, Texas-based company said it had profit of 88 cents. Earnings, adjusted for pretax gains, were 67 cents per share.

The results exceeded Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of five analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 59 cents per share.

The company that leases furniture and appliances with an option to buy posted revenue of $701.9 million in the period, which also beat Street forecasts. Six analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $700.7 million.

Rent-A-Center shares have dropped 37% since the beginning of the year. In the final minutes of trading on Wednesday, shares hit $18.22, a drop of 27% in the last 12 months.

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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on RCII at https://www.zacks.com/ap/RCII