THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, July 11, 1995 TAG: 9507110241
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BLOOMBERG BUSINESS NEWS
DATELINE: LONDON LENGTH: Short : 34 lines
Thorn EMI Plc, a British rentals, music retailer and recording company, said it will pay $106 million to buy Advantage Companies Inc. and a Virginia Beach-based affiliate, Tidewater Rental Corp.
The Wichita, Kan.-based Advantage and Tidewater already operate as franchisees of Thorn under the Rent-A-Center name. Advantage has 98 of the rental-purchase stores in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia. Tidewater has 20 stores in Virginia, including 12 in Hampton Roads.
The acquisitions will bolster Thorn's standing as the largest rent-to-own company in North America with almost 1,300 stores.
The overall purchase price for both acquisitions includes a ``negligible'' amount of acquired debt, Thorn said.
As part of the deal, Thorn said it will drop a lawsuit filed Dec. 17 against Advantage in Kansas following the acquisition. Thorn sued Advantage for alleged breach of contract after its AdvantEdge unit used Thorn marketing materials in its four Colorado rental stores, which were in direct competition with Thorn's company-owned Rent-A-Center stores in the same area.
In the year to Jan. 22, Advantage posted a pretax profit of $10.1 million and had net assets totaling $26.4 million. Tidewater said pretax profit in the year to Dec. 25 totaled $2.4 million and net assets totaled $3.5 million. by CNB