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Upbound Group, Inc. (UPBD)

Q4 2019 Earnings Call· Tue, Feb 25, 2020

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, and thank you for holding. Welcome to Rent-A-Center's Fourth Quarter Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded Tuesday, February 25, 2020. Your speakers today are Mr. Mitch Fadel, Chief Executive Officer of Rent-A-Center; Maureen Short, Chief Financial Officer; and Daniel O'Rourke, Senior Vice President of Finance. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. O'Rourke. Please go ahead, sir.

Daniel O'Rourke

Management

Thank you, Lisa. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Our earnings release was distributed after market closed yesterday, and it outlines our operational and financial results for the fourth quarter and full-year 2019. All related materials, including a link to the live webcast are available on our Web site at investor.rentacenter.com. As a reminder, some of the statements provided on this call are forward-looking statements, which are subject to many factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations. Rent-A-Center undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. These factors are described in our earnings release issued yesterday, as well as in the company's SEC filings. I'd now like to turn the call over to Mitch.

Mitch Fadel

Management

Thank you, Daniel, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. We will be providing a voiceover to the presentation shown on the webcast, and it can also be found on investor.rentacenter.com. 2019 marked a milestone year for Rent-A-Center, and as you can see on slide three, we significantly improved profitability and cash flow. Performance was driven by revenue growth and efficiency initiatives. We made strategic investments that are taking our retail partner segment to the next level, and we profitability grew the Rent-A-Center business as well. Comparable store sales were positive in all operating segments fueled by continuing enhancements in our value proposition and in ecommerce. We strengthened our balance sheet due to a significant reduction in debt, and used excess cash investment in our growth strategy, while simultaneously initiating a 16% increase in our quarterly dividend. We feel great about the business, and believe we are well on the path of sustainable earnings growth. We have a business that generates significant cash. In channels, we intend to continue to evolve and optimize to capture growth. I am extremely proud of our teams and confident in our strategy. Now, turning to the fourth quarter on slide four, while consolidated same-store sales were up 1.6% over the fourth quarter last year, they have increased over 10% on the two-year basis. We ended the quarter with a record number of average customers per store. Operating earnings rose approximately 50%, and the adjusted EBITDA margin improved 210 basis points versus the same quarter last year helped by favorable lease performance and efficiency initiatives. Revenue growth in our retail partner channel accelerated in the quarter with invoice volume up 35% driven by organic expansion and strong performance in virtual. We believe we are well-positioned to build on these trends in 2020, and…

Maureen Short

Management

Thanks, Mitch. Good morning, everyone. I'll cover financial highlights for the fourth quarter and review our guidance for 2020. Starting with slide 11, consolidated total revenues were approximately $668 million in the fourth quarter, an increase of 29% versus the same period last year. The gain was driven by a consolidated same-store sales increase of 1.6% partially offset by re-franchising and rationalizing our store base. Adjusted EBITDA was $63.7 million in the quarter, and EBITDA margin was 9.5%, up 210 basis points over the same period last year. Non-GAAP diluted EPS was $0.58, up 66% over last year. Turning to segment results, which incorporates the changes noted in the release. Preferred lease total revenues increased 10.8% in the fourth quarter versus the same quarter last year. The performance reflects the 35% increase in invoice volume driven by organic expansion and strong performance in the retail partner channel. Same-store sales were up 2.1% in the fast model versus the same quarter last year. We are encouraged by the results and optimistic about prospects to achieve invoice volume growth in each quarter of 2020. This will be the final quarter we will report same-store sales for the preferred lease segment. As we believe invoice volume is the more useful metric as we move forward with our hybrid model and newly launched virtual offering. Adjusted EBITDA after preferred lease was $17.6 million or 9.2% of revenues. The year-over-year change in EBITDA as a percent of sales was driven by investments in people and cost to integrate technology to support future growth. The margin Delta was also impacted by the mixtures to virtual locations, which have higher skip/stolen losses in staff locations. In total, skip/stolen losses were 14.2% of sales for the preferred lease segment in the fourth quarter. Lease performance was in line…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] And our first question today comes from the line of Brad Thomas from KeyBanc Capital. Your line is open.

Brad Thomas

Analyst

Hi, good morning, Mitch and Maureen, and congratulations on a strong fourth quarter and strong year.

Maureen Short

Management

Thanks, Brad.

Mitch Fadel

Management

Good morning, Brad. Thank you.

Brad Thomas

Analyst

Let's see, I wanted to just first start off with new preferred lease business and the integration of Merchants Preferred, and I guess just follow-up on where we are at on that -- in that integration and where we stand today from a position of your ability to go out in market and pitch the new offering and potentially be landing some new more sizable accounts?

Mitch Fadel

Management

Good question, Brad. We are there. I mean we are integrated and we are ready to go. We made some enhancements, as Maureen mentioned, to the technology. Of course, that's an ongoing issue. We are always going to be enhancing especially in this day and age. So it's always being enhanced, but we are ready. We are out selling. We have added a number of people to sales team. Probably almost triple the sales team. Since we bought Merchants Preferred, we added a specific person for large national accounts as you saw our press release maybe about 10 days ago. So, we added to the sales team, added to the technology. We are integrated. And we have added a national accounts person solely to focus on the bigger accounts. So we are off and running.

Brad Thomas

Analyst

Great, and on the Rent-A-Center side of the business, we had seen that the industry has faced some headwinds from things like deflation and consumer electronics and potentially that shorter selling season over the holiday period. What did you all see in the fourth quarter? And how are you feeling about the health of the portfolio? I mean clearly the guidance would imply that you feel about momentum, but just curious if you have experienced any other dynamics yourself.

Mitch Fadel

Management

We do feel good about it. We felt good about the fourth quarter. We had a really, really tough comp as you know that whatever the Rent-A-Center business segment was 9% or something last year. We comped over that. So, now we are in the, I think, mid 10s on the two-year comp. So we are very happy with the way it turned out. We have adjusted our plans. I mean you can see the one week less from a shopping period standpoint that was on the calendar for a long time. So we knew it was there. And we started our Black Friday sale a week earlier than we had a year before things like that. So you just have to adjust and we feel good about it. As I mentioned, we have added a few new product lines. Yes, the deflation has been an issue. I am not even going to tell you, Brad, you know how long I have done this. I have done this for a number of years. So, we have been through quite a few cycles in the electronics category of having to adjust, bring a newer technology, try to -- these days ramp more of the Samsung QLEDs than we rent of the regular UHD TV is more premium technology and so forth. So, it's a headwind we are used to. You have to change your value proposition, adjust your pricing, adjust your screen sizes, adjust with the kinds of technology carry with. We have been through this a number of times, and it's -- I won't say it's not a bit of a headwind, but it's one we certainly have overcome and we will continue to overcome not only with the way we handle the electronics today, but with other new product categories.

Brad Thomas

Analyst

Very helpful. Thanks so much, Mitch.

Mitch Fadel

Management

Thanks, Brad.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Kyle Joseph from Jefferies. Your line is open.

Kyle Joseph

Analyst

Hey, good morning guys, and I will echo Brad's statements about the solid quarter and solid end to the year. I just like to get your sense for on the preferred lease business. You gave us plenty of color about the margins in 2020, but as we step back and look at that from a longer term perspective, can you give us a sense for where you think that overall EBITDA margin shakes out? And maybe first in context just compare how it eventually looks versus the Rent-A-Center side of the business?

Maureen Short

Management

Sure. Thanks, Kyle. So thinking about the EBITDA margins within the preferred lease segment, we expect low double digit guidance for 2020 for that segment similar to the EBITDA performance we had this year. We continue to invest in the business and so that negatively impacts EBITDA margin, but as we scale up the business, we have made some investments. We purchased Merchants Preferred which had a lower EBITDA margin, and as we integrated that within the business with a full quarter performance in Q4, that was slightly dilutive to EBITDA margins, as we scale up that business and recoup the return on our investments early in the year, not to start to build over time. So, we expect an ongoing EBITDA rate of low double-digits relative to the Rent-A-Center business, which is around 15%. As you know, we've had significant cost savings initiatives within that business segment, and even expect another $10 million to $15 million this year.

Kyle Joseph

Analyst

Got it. That's really helpful. Appreciate that. And I know you just integrated the business, but can you give us a sense for the pipeline of retailers there and describe some of the -- you know, are they nationwide, are they more regional players, and then in terms of merchandises, are you guys looking to diversify the merchandise that you guys are partnered with there?

Mitch Fadel

Management

Yes. Good morning, Kyle. Yes, it's a yes. All of those actually have, yes, to the pipeline looks really good. The pipeline for national players is starting to define itself. Again, we hired our national accounts person three weeks ago, but he hits the ground running, because he's done this for -- he was doing this for TD Bank before we hired Paul Hamilton. So, not that we weren't working on before that either. So, yes, the pipeline is good in all accounts, both in local, regional and national accounts. So, we're pretty excited, and again, I remind you, we don't -- the forecast doesn't necessitate a national player to hit the kind of numbers we've talked about over the next couple of years, just need to keep going on the regional players. So, we don't even have to have one, but I feel really, really good that we will get some national accounts over the next year or two.

Kyle Joseph

Analyst

Got it. And then, one last one for me a little bit on semantics here, but the CapEx on the preferred lease segment was low in 4Q, are the investments in that business is not quantified as CapEx in the fourth quarter? I'm just kind of trying to reconcile that with your CapEx outlook for 2020?

Maureen Short

Management

Yes. So, most of the investments we've made so far with the integration of Merchants Preferred have been to grow the sales team. There's been some technology investments, a lot of which will continue to grow in 2020, but some of that is operating expenses, some of that is CapEx, but a lot of what we've seen so far has been related to people, which are operating expenses.

Mitch Fadel

Management

Yes, and enhancing the technology isn't always CapEx, right, a lot of it's operating expense when you're enhancing something that already exists.

Kyle Joseph

Analyst

Yes, no, that makes perfect sense. That's it from me. Thanks very much for the time and answering my questions.

Mitch Fadel

Management

Thanks, Kyle.

Maureen Short

Management

Thanks, Kyle.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of John Baugh from Stifel. Your line is open.

John Baugh

Analyst

Thank you. Good morning, and congrats on the fourth quarter and year. I'll jump right into it, could you just tell us where in the store business the CE percentage is right now, Mitch, and maybe how that changed in 2019 versus 2018?

Mitch Fadel

Management

It's about 15% of the revenue, and at the end of 2018, it was running about 10%. So, I'm not very good at math, but that's what about, 50% growth in that segment, it went from 15 to 10, from 10 to 15, excuse me. So, continues to grow, and we talked about a little bit last quarter how the number of orders that come in off the web are kind of a leading indicator, and when we look at the web orders in the fourth quarter, which was about 17% of all of our lease-owned agreements, that translates and it's heading towards being 20% of the revenue in the future. So, 15% of the revenue in the fourth quarter, but the agreements we were all were 17% of the agreement, so it just continues to build the -- writing the agreement obviously is more of a forward-looking indicator towards higher than 15% revenue going forward. So, it looks to me like that'll be 20% pretty soon.

John Baugh

Analyst

Okay, I'm sorry, that was the ecommerce that you're talking about there, I was asking about the mix of products sold products or appliances versus consumer electronics in the store business in 2019 versus 2018?

Mitch Fadel

Management

Sorry about that, I guess I heard that wrong.

John Baugh

Analyst

That's okay. That's okay.

Mitch Fadel

Management

I've been watching so many politicians. I just answered the question I wanted to answer rather than wanted to ask at time, but sorry I was about CE, so you were talking about the headwinds in consumer electronics?

John Baugh

Analyst

Yes.

Mitch Fadel

Management

Yes. We're down a little bit in that category, but again, and you know, John, we've done this together for a long time, you followed us a long-time. You have to, you stop carrying the 32-inch TVs and stop carrying 40-inch TVs and just get bigger when those TVs become $200 at stores like Best Buy, you don't carry them anymore and you just move up the screen size, you start to mix in the QLED from Samsung and nano cell from LG and that kind of stuff and you minimize the disruption of the deflation and we're still in that 25% range in consumer electronics. So, we've done it before, when we have to adjust from either adjust from two TVs to when those went out of style back in the 1980s and early 1990s. So we've done this a few times, we know how to do it. It doesn't mean it's not a bit of a headwind, it's just you can make a headwind with your value proposition, your mix, and then we're getting another categories, testing a lot of categories, but as I mentioned, like tires and handbags and so forth, but it's running above and maybe the short answer to your question is around about 25% of our revenue.

John Baugh

Analyst

Great. Thank you for that. And then Maureen, I think you mentioned something about a 20% invoice growth in Preferred Lease in 2020, did I hear that right, is that comparing like the old Merchants Preferred organically or help me define that number?

Maureen Short

Management

Yes, the 20% is that organic growth expected in 2020 in that business. As you know, we bought Merchants Preferred in August and we will also benefit next year from a full-year of Merchants Preferred. So we wanted to isolate the impact of just the organic growth, but just to help you, we ended the year with about $750 million in revenue in Preferred Lease. If we would have had Merchants Preferred a full-year it would have equated to another $50 million of revenue. So starting the year at $800 million it's about a 20% organic invoice volume growth. So, the total growth overall for that segment will be higher than 20 because we'll also have the full-year benefit of Merchants Preferred but organically we expect 20% invoice for volume growth.

John Baugh

Analyst

Got it, so the staffed model will grow as you said maybe low single digits, and then to get to that guidance you gave for at least the rest of sort of combination of picking up pro forma, what you didn't own for Merchants Preferred as well as the organic growth there?

Maureen Short

Management

The staffed business is actually expected to grow double-digits as well. It is slightly below Merchants Preferred but overall, it's also growing double-digits we're benefiting in the staffed business from adding additional functionality, technology, integrating with their POS systems and other application portals as well as growing the ecommerce business for our retail partners.

Mitch Fadel

Management

It grew 15% in the fourth quarter in the staffed model, John.

John Baugh

Analyst

Okay, that's interesting. Okay. And then you mentioned Paul coming on board. Were there other leadership changes that occurred within Merchants Preferred or Preferred Lease and any specifics of actions taken to help us think about the new tools in your tool bag in that side of the business?

Mitch Fadel

Management

Well, certainly added lot of people, through an integration, some people, some people, a lot of people get in it, some people leave and so forth like any integration. The other thing I'd add is we added a board member, same press release we said out about Paul Hamilton joining us. We added a board member here recently that that has a lot of experience in the retail, retail business, retail partner business payment, payment solution business was Glenn Marino was with Synchrony for a number of years as top executive at Synchrony, so he just joined our board and so we're just adding a lot of people that help us in that part of the business and then a lot of sales people as well.

John Baugh

Analyst

Great, thank you. Good luck.

Mitch Fadel

Management

Thanks John.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Bobby Griffin from Raymond James. Your line is open.

Bobby Griffin

Analyst

Good morning everybody. Thank you for taking my questions, and let me add my congrats to a solid all around year for you guys.

Mitch Fadel

Management

Thanks Bobby.

Bobby Griffin

Analyst

So I guess first I want to talk on the Lease Preferred, can you maybe talk a little bit about what some of your legacy acceptance now customers are doing? Are you seeing some of them switch to the virtual and hybrid model when they used to be staffed or they are kind of integrating the two, any commentary there would be great.

Mitch Fadel

Management

There is a few conversions mostly in the lower, the lower volume staffed stores where it might be better for everybody to go more hybrid like just weekend labor or totally virtual. Our largest customers like I mentioned, that weren't five out of the six largest conventional furniture retailers, they're pretty much the same because the volume is such that we need to say staff pretty much Bell the bellwether, they're open, companies that you saw on the slide like Bobs and Rooms to go and Value City and so forth and actually those are staffed, Bell, and we will continue to be now some of the technology enhancements make us more efficient. Some of the e-com enhancements can grow the business more from the customers going on their website. So there're enhancements being made there, but those will say staffed, they just do a lot of volume per location.

Bobby Griffin

Analyst

Okay, that's helpful and Maureen on the additional cost savings, I might have missed in your prepared remarks but additional cost savings in the Rent-A-Center business, can you maybe give a little color on what areas of the operations you guys have identified for the incremental 15 this year?

Maureen Short

Management

Sure. The large piece of our cost savings initiative is optimizing the number of vehicles we have in our Rent-A-Center stores. We're also investing capital in new more modern technology to streamline the store network, which will increase the speed and functionality for our co-workers serving our customers, as well as the increased costs over time from the lower monthly spend. So this is mainly is reducing the fleet or the vehicles and reducing the network cost in our stores.

Bobby Griffin

Analyst

Okay, that's helpful. And then lastly, just a quick modeling question for me. Can you provide the store count across the business units at the end of 12/31/19 for us to tune up our models?

Maureen Short

Management

Sure, in the Rent-A-Center business, we ended the year with 1973 corporate U.S. stores, 998 Preferred Lease back locations, 123 Mexico locations and 372 franchise locations.

Bobby Griffin

Analyst

Perfect, well, thank you for the detail, best of luck in 2020.

Maureen Short

Management

Thanks a lot, Bobby.

Mitch Fadel

Management

Thanks, Bobby. I'd also add to that before we get to the next question that Maureen had mentioned in her prepared comments. You're asking about the store count Bobby but she's added the share count number in her prepared comments and we need to make sure people heard that. So that because as you notice the EBITDA numbers relative to consensus estimates were are higher and not so much the EPS higher in 2020 compared to the street because the share count number being used by a lot of the analysts is not updated and if when you use the right share count with our profits, our EPS guidance is higher than where this street, so make sure we get the right share count, which is lot again, Maureen.

Maureen Short

Management

We ended the quarter at 56.6 million and we're expecting it to be 57 diluted shares outstanding in 2020.

Mitch Fadel

Management

Yes, if you don't use enough then EPS was, even though we guided higher profit. EPS came out about the same as it was because the number was too low in some cases and that mostly just stock performance a little bit on the Merchants Preferred stock we gave. But as the stock goes up more of the, as more shares to be counted based on the employee incentives and what we do in Merchants Preferred, so, just a little reminder there besides the store count, Bobby.

Bobby Griffin

Analyst

Absolutely, thank you. Thank you for that Mitch and best of luck going forward.

Mitch Fadel

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of John Rowan from Janney. Your line is open.

John Rowan

Analyst

Good morning, guys.

Mitch Fadel

Management

Good morning, John.

John Rowan

Analyst

Mitch, I was going to give you an opportunity to talk about the share count. So there we go again. Can you remind me in the deck it shows $220 million of repurchase authorization, can you remind me where that comes from; is that the accelerated buyback programs? What are the covenants around utilizing it, I just want to, I hate some repurchases in my model as well and I just want to make sure that we're bracketing, how we looked at those correctly, versus how the program functions. And you know what the covenant restrictions are?

Maureen Short

Management

So, the $220 million was authorized by the board several years ago, we did do an accelerated share repurchase plan several years ago. I don't anticipate that at this point, but it was a decision that was made several years ago. We have plenty of capacity in our debt facility. That, that and that something that the board has opined on and believes that share repurchases could be a part of our capital allocation strategy. We actually did repurchase a few shares in the fourth quarter and are open to that in 2020. But as a reminder, our guidance does not include any share repurchase activity for 2020.

John Rowan

Analyst

But your -- but the accelerated purchase program wouldn't preclude you from going into the market at opportune times. It doesn't require like a block purchase or anything, correct?

Maureen Short

Management

No, that there's really no stipulation around share repurchases that were under at this time that the accelerated share repurchase plan was something we did a one-time thing several years ago. So it has nothing to do with our go forward strategy and potentially buying back shares opportunistically.

John Rowan

Analyst

Okay. And then as we look at cash flow in 2020, right? So we can balance out the possibility of repurchases in the share count issue? The one -- was it 105 to -- I remember that the free cash flow guidance, that does not include the €35 million for the sale leaseback, correct. I can't remember, was that close to the very end of this last quarter or was that closed in January of this year?

Maureen Short

Management

It was closed in the fourth quarter, so by the end of…

John Rowan

Analyst

Okay. So that wouldn't be in guidance for next year. Okay. Tax season, some indications are the rates are -- refunds are a little slow. It's probably too early to draw conclusion. I did see something on the IRS website stating that you know some of the earned income tax credits and affordable childcare tax credits might get pushed out into the very beginning of March, which is a little bit of a delay versus last year. I just want to make sure that type of delay doesn't push refunds out past the early payout options for your lease contracts?

Mitch Fadel

Management

Yes, good question. John, we don't know -- it is a little, it doesn't appear like it's going to be a little slower maybe a week slower than last year, but then appear this is going to cause any issue relative to how we perform in the in the quarter, how the customer performs. So I wouldn't see that as, it's a little bit slower, but I don't think it's going to be an issue based on the way, it normally works, and we're here we are later in February. I can tell you that, even through January. I mean, business remains solid and we're on our plan.

John Rowan

Analyst

Okay.

Maureen Short

Management

And John, and we have a longer same as cash period. Now relative to other than versus even a year or two ago, we're not up against that period where people sign up for agreements over Black Friday. And then, you come close to not being able to exercise, if there is a delay in tax return. And that's not an issue for us.

John Rowan

Analyst

That's right. When did you -- did you extend that last year or was it even the year before where you changed? Was it went from like 90 days to maybe 120 or something like that?

Mitch Fadel

Management

Yes. In early 2018, when I came back, we went from 90 to either 120 or 180, depending on the product that vary. So yes, Maureen made a great point. It doesn't -- it really wouldn't matter a week here or there, and this is, this will be our second tax season under that or we're two full years into that, that's working. Obviously, the value proposition is working pretty well.

John Rowan

Analyst

Okay. Last housekeeping question, what's the correct blended rate to use on that?

Maureen Short

Management

It's around 6%.

John Rowan

Analyst

Okay. And actually one more question, one more housekeeping, the tax rate for 2020?

Maureen Short

Management

The tax rate will be similar to this year around 24%, 24% to 25%.

John Rowan

Analyst

All right, thank you very much.

Mitch Fadel

Management

Thanks, John.

Maureen Short

Management

Thank you, John.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Anthony Chukumba from Loop Capital Markets. Your line is open

Anthony Chukumba

Analyst

Good morning and thanks for taking my questions. So first question, you mentioned some of these new product categories and specifically you mentioned the jewelry, handbags, tires, I think there's a fourth one, I'm forgetting. Just two questions on that. First, I guess the fourth one was tools. Two questions on that. First off, is that in all stores at this point, and then also -- and then second-off, if you can just give some early color in terms of what you're seeing there in terms of customer acceptance and any, and any sort of market differences in terms of like skip/stolens on those products? Thanks.

Mitch Fadel

Management

Sure, Anthony. I'll answer part of your question and the rest I'll be careful not to give our competition too much information. Handbags and tools have been rolled out nationwide. Tools, generators handbags are nationwide. After we did a test, they were on a nationwide tires and jewelry are still in test, the recent test that we just started, as far as any other data around how they're specifically performing like I said I think I'll keep that in my pocket.

Anthony Chukumba

Analyst

Okay, fair enough. And then I guess my second question. Is there any particular reason that you did -- you didn't have the store accounts in your press release because typically you have you have those in your press release?

Maureen Short

Management

Yes, we've decided to include them in our 10-K and 10-Q going forward with the addition of virtual and the complexity of hybrid locations that could potentially even shift between a virtual location to a staffed at any given point within a quarter. It just complicates the numbers. We will continue to show the staff location, the Rent-A-Center stores franchising in Mexico. Going forward, it's just a less relevant number for us when it comes to the preferred lease segment. We use the metric of invoice volume to really understand what the business is doing rather than location count.

Anthony Chukumba

Analyst

Got it. Okay. Thank you.

Maureen Short

Management

Thank you, Anthony.

Mitch Fadel

Management

Thanks, Anthony.

Operator

Operator

Our final question today comes from the line of Vincent Caintic from Stephens. Your line is open.

Vincent Caintic

Analyst

Hi, thanks. Good morning. First on preferred lease, so certainly the good guide for 2020 up 18% year-over-year at the midpoint; just two questions, first, is there a cadence over the course of 2018 that we should expect it to ramp up or is it kind of an even 18% throughout the year? And then secondly, it was great that you've admitted that you already have national accounts. all in furniture, however, I'm just wondering, is it a big lift to go from national furniture retailers to becoming to going for a broader set of retailer categories?

Mitch Fadel

Management

I'll start with that and let Maureen talking about the cadence. No, I don't see it as a big lift Vincent, to get into other verticals and the Preferred Lease side. We've done really well with a bigger furniture accounts. No, I don't see this big lift. I think. I'm sure you're familiar, if the biggest change when you get into different verticals and just going to be your decision engineer risk, your risk engine and you might tighten it in one category versus another. That's all, but it's not a not a big lift other than -- presumably you have to tighten it a little more one category versus another.

Maureen Short

Management

Just to add on to that, I mean, we've got one thing that national accounts are looking for is a public company with a strong balance sheet to be able to fund future growth, and we absolutely have that. So it should be like Mitch said, not too big of a stretch to go into someone that is fairly similar in size to some of these other large retail partners that we currently do business with. And then to answer your question about Preferred Lease, and how the cadence of growth will show through 2020 it does build throughout the year as a portfolio business so as we add additional retail partners, it will compound so that the second half of the year is higher growth than the first half of the year.

Vincent Caintic

Analyst

Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you. One more question, so, on the Rent-A-Center core business storage, just seemed the revenue and EBITDA guidance kind of flattish for 2020. Is that entirely from re-franchising efforts and if so, just kind of wanting what you're thinking about re-franchising and remind us kind of the EBITDA lifts that comes from re-franchising. Thank you.

Mitch Fadel

Management

Yes, Vincent, I think that is the difference, re-franchised about 100 stores last year. So you think about that it's almost 5% of our store, re-franchise when you think about the revenue impact of that, and going forward, as we said, very opportunistically a couple years ago, we were talking about franchising more certainly the company was in a different position as the position we're in now. It's going to be used very opportunistically certain markets if we think a franchisee they can do better for whatever reasons, but just opportunistically so I don't see that. It's not a big part of our strategy going forward, but it does remain part of our strategy from an opportunistic standpoint. As far as EBITDA going forward, there hasn't been much impacted the EBITDA was down a little bit because of re-franchising that would have some negative impact. I talked about the revenue, but if you re-franchise opportunistically that little profit stores you don't give up with that much EBITDA, our royalty rates run between 5% and 6%. So if you're selling the four quartile stores you're not going to be that far off from an EBITDA standpoint. It's mostly revenue some EBITDA but you get your return somewhere else because you got cash for the stores in any given return based on what you do with that money, right, so -- but overall, it's more of a revenue impact that see more even than EBITDA impact when you just look at the Rent-A-Center business segment.

Maureen Short

Management

Right.

Vincent Caintic

Analyst

Great, very helpful. Thanks so much. Thanks.

Mitch Fadel

Management

Thanks, Vincent.

Operator

Operator

We have no further questions. I'll turn the call back to Mitch Fadel for closing remarks.

Mitch Fadel

Management

Thank you, Lisa, and thank you, everyone for joining us this morning. We were glad to deliver very positive results for 2019 and for the fourth quarter specifically. And I want to thank all the entire team, the 14,000 or so co-workers out there in the stores in the chaos here in the field support center. There's a great effort last year by many, many people, and we will work just as hard in 2020 to do it again. Thank you everybody.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes Today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.