Rent-a-Center/Vintage Capital

Christopher Korst, General Counsel for Rent-A-Center (RAC), looked at the time. It was late in the evening on December 17, 2018, yet no notice of extension had come from Vintage Capital. In June, Vintage had agreed to buy RAC for $15 per share in cash, amounting to $803 million in total deal equity value. Vintage also owned a controlling interest in Buddy’s Home Furnishings (“Buddy’s”), a competitor to RAC, and both sides acknowledged that antitrust approval from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) could take some time. In fact, just a few weeks earlier RAC had told its shareholders that work with the FTC to gain antitrust approval would delay the closing until the first quarter of 2019.