Rent-A-Center (RCII) announced today that it has agreed to repurchase an aggregate of 440,000 shares of its common stock at $73 per share, 200,000 of which will be repurchased from Mark E. Speese, the Company's Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, 200,000 of which will be repurchased from Apollo Investment Fund IV, L.P. and Apollo Overseas Partners IV, L.P., and 40,000 of which will be repurchased from Mitchell E. Fadel, the Company's President and Chief Operating Officer.

In connection with the recent refinancing of the Company's debt and equity structure, the Company effected the repurchase a total of 2,544,507 shares of the Company's common stock at $73 per share.

Robert D. Davis
Chief Financial Officer
"The repurchases announced today are consistent with our stated intention to repurchase a total of 3,200,000 shares of our common stock. These purchases will bring the total shares repurchased to 2,984,507 shares, still short of our 3,200,000 goal. As such, we intend to continue repurchasing shares of our common stock in the open market or in privately negotiated transactions," Davis continued, "to the extent we have available cash on hand which is not needed for store openings, acquisitions or other corporate purposes."

The repurchase transactions announced today were made pursuant to the Company's stock repurchase program. Following the closing of these repurchases, approximately $23.6 million will be available under the stock repurchase program for additional open market and privately negotiated repurchases of common stock.