Common Stock and Stock-Based Compensation (Notes)

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2021

Stock-Based Compensation [Abstract]

Stock-Based Compensation

Common Stock and Stock-Based Compensation

Under our current common stock repurchase program, our Board of Directors has authorized the purchase, from time to time, in the open market and privately negotiated transactions, up to an aggregate of $75 million of Rent-A-Center common stock. No shares were repurchased during the three months ended March 31, 2021. During the three months ended March 31, 2020, we repurchased 1,461,177 shares of our common stock for an aggregate purchase price of $26.5 million, which included shares having an aggregate purchase price of $10.0 million that were purchased under a repurchase program that was previously authorized by our Board of Directors until its replacement by the current program in March 2020. Under the March 2020 authorization, $58.4 million remains available for repurchases in the open market and privately negotiated transactions.

We recognized $4.3 million and $3.0 million in compensation expense related to stock awards issued under the Rent-A-Center 2016 Long-Term Incentive Plan (the “2016 Plan”) during the three months ended March 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively. During the three months ended March 31, 2021, we granted approximately 65,000 stock options, 238,000 market-based performance units and 141,000 time-vesting units under the 2016 Plan. The stock options granted were valued using a Black-Scholes pricing model with the following assumptions: an expected volatility of 47.54% to 52.80%, a risk-free interest rate of 0.21% to 0.47%, an expected dividend yield of 3.24%, and an expected term of 3.50 to 5.75 years. The weighted-average exercise price of the options granted during the three months ended March 31, 2021 was $38.29 and the weighted-average grant-date fair value was $12.20. Performance-based units and time-vesting restricted units were valued using our closing stock price on March 31, 2021.

As described in Note 2, Aggregate Stock Consideration issued to the former owners of Acima Holdings included 10,779,923 of common shares valued at $51.14 per share, as of the date of closing. Of this total, 2,683,328 common shares were included in the aggregate purchase price of the transaction for financial reporting purposes, while 8,096,595 common shares, valued at $414.1 million, issued under restricted stock agreements and subject to vesting conditions, will be recognized as stock compensation expense over the vesting term in accordance with ASC Topic 718, “Stock-based Compensation”. We recognized $15.9 million in stock compensation expense related to these restricted stock agreements during the three months ended March

31, 2021, which was recorded to Other charges in our Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations, as described in Note 10.