The Aaron's Company, Inc. is an American lease-to-own retailer. The company focuses on leases and retail sales of

furniture Furniture refers to objects intended to support various human activities such as seating (e.g., Stool (seat), stools, chairs, and sofas), eating (table (furniture), tables), storing items, working, and sleeping (e.g., beds and hammocks). Furnitur ...

electronics Electronics is a scientific and engineering discipline that studies and applies the principles of physics to design, create, and operate devices that manipulate electrons and other Electric charge, electrically charged particles. It is a subfield ...

, appliances, and computers. The company sells through the company-operated and franchised stores, e-commerce platform (Aarons.com)

Locations

, the Aaron's Company has 1,340 stores: 1,092 company-operated stores (in 43 states and Canada) and 248 independently owned and operated franchised stores in 35 states and Canada.

History

Aaron Rents, Inc. was founded by R. Charles Loudermilk, Sr. in 1955. In September 2008, Aaron's announced the sale of its Corporate Furnishings division to CORT Business Services, part of

Berkshire Hathaway Berkshire Hathaway Inc. () is an American multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. Originally a textile manufacturer, the company transitioned into a conglomerate starting in 1965 under the management of c ...

. Aaron's Corporate Furnishings division, which operated 47 stores, recorded revenues of approximately $99 million in 2007. As of December 31, 2016, Aaron's had 1,864 stores located in 28 states and the District of Columbia and Canada. In addition, they had 699 independently owned franchised stores in 46 states and Canada. On July 29, 2020, Aaron's Holdings Company, Inc. announced plans to split into two companies: PROG Holdings, Inc. and The Aaron's Company, Inc. PROG Holdings, with the ticker symbol "PRG" (), remained in the S&P Midcap 400 stock index but its

Global Industry Classification Standard The Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS) is an industry taxonomy developed in 1999 by MSCI and Standard & Poor's (S&P) for use by the global financial community. The GICS structure consists of 11 sectors, 25 industry groups, 74 industrie ...

was changed to "Consumer Finance". The Aaron's Company continued to trade under the ticker symbol "AAN" () but was moved into the S&P Smallcap 600. In April of 2022, Aaron's purchased Brandsmart USA, a regional appliance and consumer electronics retailer, for $230 Million. On October 3, 2024, IQVentures completed the acquisition of the firm for approximately $504 million.

Controversy

In February 2013, customers sued Aaron's for allegedly using

spyware Spyware (a portmanteau for spying software) is any malware that aims to gather information about a person or organization and send it to another entity in a way that harms the user by violating their privacy, endangering their device's securit ...

on rented computers to send over 185,000 emails to the rental company, including customers'

Social Security number In the United States, a Social Security number (SSN) is a nine-digit number issued to United States nationality law, U.S. citizens, Permanent residence (United States), permanent residents, and temporary (working) residents under section 205(c)(2 ...

s, passwords and captured keystrokes, as well as explicit images. The Aaron's Company officials had previously said that the company had not installed the spyware, and individual franchisees were responsible. In October 2013, Aaron's agreed to a settlement with the

Federal Trade Commission The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) United States antitrust law, antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. It ...

that limited how it used monitoring technology and ordered it to delete customer information that had been improperly collected.

References

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