CONN'S, Inc. : Announces Plans to Close Five Stores
01/20/2012| 07:05am US/Eastern
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Conn's, Inc. (NASDAQ/NM:CONN), a specialty retailer of consumer
electronics, home appliances, furniture, mattresses, computers and lawn
and garden products today announced its plans to close five stores.
Based on continued review of the demographic information and market
share opportunities of its current store base, the Company has
identified five underperforming store locations that it will close
during January 2012. The stores had average annual revenues of $5
million per store, and are located in Edmond, Oklahoma, Houston, Texas,
San Antonio, Texas and two in Dallas, Texas. The Company is in the
process of determining the long-lived asset impairment and lease charges
that will be required to be recorded in its fourth quarter of fiscal
2012 financial statements. Upon completion of all announced store
closures the Company will have 64 retail locations.
"The closing of the five stores this month is a continuation of our
previously communicated plan to evaluate our existing store base and
close or relocate underperforming stores. Additionally, we are
progressing on our plans to open five to seven new stores in fiscal
2013, in areas with compelling demographic characteristics that we
believe are favorable to our business model," commented Theodore Wright,
the Company's CEO.
About Conn's, Inc.
The Company is a specialty retailer currently operating 70 retail
locations in Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma: with 23 stores in the
Houston area, 17 in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, eight in San
Antonio, three in Austin, five in Southeast Texas, one in Corpus
Christi, four in South Texas, six in Louisiana and three in Oklahoma.
The Company's primary product categories include:
Home appliances, including refrigerators, freezers, washers, dryers,
dishwashers and ranges;
Consumer electronics, including LCD, LED, 3-D, plasma and DLP
televisions, camcorders, digital cameras, Blu-ray and DVD players,
video game equipment, portable audio, MP3 players and home theater
products;
Furniture and mattresses, including furniture for the living room,
dining room, bedroom and related accessories and mattresses; and
Home office, including desktop, notebook, netbook and tablet
computers, printers and computer accessories.
Additionally, the Company offers a variety of products on a seasonal
basis, including lawn and garden equipment, and continues to introduce
additional product categories for the home to help respond to its
customers' product needs and to increase same store sales. Unlike many
of its competitors, the Company provides flexible in-house credit
options for its customers, in addition to third-party financing programs
and third-party rent-to-own payment plans. In the last three years, the
Company financed, on average, approximately 60% of its retail sales
under its in-house financing plan.
This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve
risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements generally can
be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "may,"
"will," "expect," "intend," "could," "estimate," "should," "anticipate,"
or "believe," or the negative thereof or variations thereon or similar
terminology. Although the Company believes that the expectations
reflected in such forward-looking statements will prove to be correct,
the Company can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to
be correct. The actual future performance of the Company could differ
materially from such statements. Factors that could cause or contribute
to such differences include, but are not limited to:
the Company's growth strategy and plans regarding opening new
stores and entering new markets;
the Company's intention to update, relocate or expand existing
stores;
the effect of closing or reducing the hours of operation of
existing stores;
the Company's estimated capital expenditures and costs related to
the opening of new stores or the update, relocation or expansion of
existing stores;
the Company's ability to introduce additional product categories;
sales trends in the home appliances, consumer electronics and
furniture and mattress industries and the Company's ability to respond
to those trends;
the pricing actions and promotional activities of competitors;
relationships with the Company's key suppliers;
delinquency and loss trends in the receivables portfolio;
the Company's ability to offer flexible financing programs;
changes in the Company's collection practices and policies;
the Company's ability to amend, renew or replace its existing
credit facilities before the maturity dates of the facilities;
the Company's ability to fund operations, debt repayment and
expansion from cash flow from operations, borrowings on its revolving
lines of credit and proceeds from securitizations and from accessing
debt or equity markets;
the ability of the Company to obtain additional funding for the
purpose of funding the receivables generated by the Company;
the ability of the Company to maintain compliance with the
covenants in its financing facilities or obtain amendments or waivers
of the covenants to avoid violations or potential violations of the
covenants;
reduced availability under the Company's credit facilities as a
result of borrowing base requirements and the impact on the borrowing
base calculation of changes in the performance or eligibility of the
customer receivables financed by that facility;
the ability of the financial institutions providing lending
facilities to the Company to fund their commitments;
the effect on borrowing costs of downgrades by rating agencies or
changes in laws or regulations on the Company's financing providers;
the cost of any amended, renewed or replacement credit facilities;
interest rates;
general economic and financial market conditions;
weather conditions in the Company's markets;
the outcome of litigation or government investigations;
changes in the Company's stock price; and
the actual number of shares of common stock outstanding.
Further information on these risk factors is included in the
Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including
the Company's annual report on Form 10-K filed on April 1, 2011. You are
cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking
statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release.
Except as required by law, the Company is not obligated to publicly
release any revisions to these forward-looking statements to reflect the
events or circumstances after the date of this press release or to
reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.
CONN-G
Conn?s, Inc., Beaumont Chief Financial Officer Mike Poppe
(409) 832-1696 Ext. 3294 or Investors: S.M. Berger &
Company Andrew Berger (216) 464-6400