Earnings Labs

Upbound Group, Inc. (UPBD)

Q2 2024 Earnings Call· Thu, Aug 1, 2024

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q2 2024 Upbound Group, Inc. Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Jeff Chesnut, Head of IR. Please go ahead.

Jeff Chesnut

Analyst

Good morning, and thank you all for joining us to discuss the company's performance for the second quarter of 2024. We issued our earnings release this morning before the market opened, and the release and all related materials including a link to the live webcast are available on our website at investor.upbound.com. On the call today from Upbound Group, we have Mitch Fadel, our CEO; and Fahmi Karam, our CFO. As a reminder, some of the statements provided on this call are forward-looking and are subject to factors that could cause actual results to differ materially and adversely from our expectations. These factors are described in our earnings release as well as in the company's SEC filings. Upbound Group undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, except as required by law. This call will also include references to non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to today's earnings release, which can be found on our website for a description of the non-GAAP financial measures and the reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP financial measures. Finally, Upbound Group is not responsible for and does not edit or guarantee the accuracy of our earnings teleconference transcripts provided by third parties. Please refer to our website for the only authorized webcasts. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mitch.

Mitch Fadel

Analyst

Thank you, Jeff, and good morning to everyone on the call today. I'll begin with a review of the key highlights from the second quarter and then I'll hand it off to Fahmi for a more detailed review of our financial results and our financial outlook. And after that, we'll take some questions. We're very pleased with the results from the quarter, which included revenues of nearly $1.1 billion, adjusted EBITDA of approximately $125 million and non-GAAP earnings per share of $1.04. Our concentrated focus on execution paid off with Rent-A-Center's revenue up nearly 2% against the prior year and Acima's revenue up 19%, consistent with prior quarters. These results were driven by a steady focus on performance of both segments. Acima continued a strong momentum with growth in merchant count, enhanced productivity of our existing merchants and a growing contribution from Acima's direct-to-consumer e-commerce channel. Our lease charge-offs were in line with our expectations as Acima finished the quarter at 9.6% and Rent-A-Center slightly better than expected at 4.2%. We also delivered strong sequential improvement in Acima's adjusted EBITDA margin to 14.7% compared to 11.6% in the first quarter, which we'll discuss in a little more detail later in the presentation. With these results and based on our current expectations for the balance of the year, we're raising the midpoint of our previous guidance for revenue, adjusted EBITDA and non-GAAP diluted EPS. So before we review our segment results, let's discuss some of the enterprise-wide themes we've seen across the past quarter. The economic backdrop for our business this quarter continued to evolve. Unemployment edged higher to the 4% area, and while still low by historic standards, it's up from the 54-year low of 3.4% in April of last year. We also monitor inflation levels, especially in categories like…

Fahmi Karam

Analyst

Thank you Mitch and good morning, everyone. I'll start today with a review of the second quarter results and then discuss our outlook for the rest of the year after, which we will take questions. Beginning on page 6 of the presentation. Consolidated revenue for the second quarter was up 9.9% year-over-year with Acima up 19% and Rent-A-Center up 1.9%. Rentals and fees revenues were up 9.7% while merchandise sales revenue increased 17.3%, reflecting a larger portfolio balance at Acima coming into the quarter. Consolidated gross margin was 49.4% and decreased 230 basis points year-over-year with a 190 basis point decrease in the Acima segment and a 40 basis point decrease in the Rent-A-Center segment. Consolidated non-GAAP operating expenses, excluding lease charge-offs and depreciation and amortization were up mid-single-digits led by a low-double-digit increase in non-labor operating expenses including delivery costs at Rent-A-Center and a high-single-digit increase in general and administrative costs, which was a result of targeted corporate investments in technology and people. The consolidated lease charge-off rate was 7.2%, a 30 basis point increase from the prior year period and in line with our expectations. On a sequential basis, the consolidated lease charge-off rate increased 20 basis points due to a 50 basis point sequential improvement at Rent-A-Center. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA of $124.5 million decreased 4.6% year-over-year with higher Acima segment adjusted EBITDA offset by lower Rent-A-Center segment adjusted EBITDA and higher corporate costs. Adjusted EBITDA margin of 11.6% was down approximately 170 basis points compared to the prior year period with approximately 160 basis points of contraction for Rent-ACenter and approximately 210 basis points of margin contraction for Acima offset by a 20 basis point increase in corporate costs as a percentage of sales. I'll provide more detail on the segment results in a moment. Looking below…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. At this time, we will conduct the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] The first question will come from -- sorry about that -- will comes Vincent Caintic. Vincent, your line is open.

Vincent Caintic

Analyst

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions and great results this quarter. First, I wanted to focus on the trade down opportunity, you've discussed and it was very encouraging to see that 35% higher applications. I'm wondering if you could talk about how much that's lifting your business so far the trade down opportunity if you see more of it? And then you brought up Concora and I was just wondering if there are opportunities to grow that with this trade-down opportunity or if there's other ways to take advantage of that? Thank you.

Mitch Fadel

Analyst

Hey, good morning. Vincent, this is Mitch. Thanks for the questions. Yes, the trade down is certainly front and center when we look at everything all the data and certainly the advantage scores and things like that. And of course you're hearing it throughout different businesses and we're certainly no exception with those 35% applications. When you say how much comes from one place versus the other, we think about 10% growth in merchants, 50% growth on our direct-to-consumer, which is a small piece, but it still drives some of that 21% GMV growth. So -- and then the productivity of the merchants really is where the trade down comes in, as well as our team's just doing a better job training those merchants and getting in first position in those stores or exclusivity and so forth.

Fahmi Karam

Analyst

I don't know if I had to break down 21%.

Mitch Fadel

Analyst

Yes, tends with new merchants. One or two maybe is coming from the direct-to-consumer even though that's 50% growth it's a small number. And the rest is a combination of the trade down and our sales team working with those merchants to get in a better position. So maybe it's somewhere between, I don't know Fahmi, 30% and 40% -- of the 21%. It's kind of hard to put a number on it but it's definitely a part of it.

Fahmi Karam

Analyst

Yes. I would say, the way I would break down the growth in GMV and I think you covered it Mitch which is about 50% of it or just under 50% of it came from new merchant locations. 5% of it came from the direct-to-consumer and the marketplace growth and the rest of it came from merchant productivity and that's probably where you see some of the trade down impact. So maybe it's more like 25% of our growth 25%, 30%, 40% somewhere in that range. But it's not like 1% or 2% it's definitely real. And we would continue -- we'd expect it to continue and if it accelerates then there's even upside to our numbers.

Mitch Fadel

Analyst

On the Concora question, yes, I think with the second look provider, because it's still a subprime offering or near prime offering with our retail partners. There's certainly a lot of interest in it as there's tightening above the near prime tightening with the prime lender. So I think that does create opportunity. As we mentioned in our prepared comments, as Fahmi mentioned, the retailers really like that -- we're hearing lots of good anecdotal stories about liking the one-stop shopping and those kind of things. So it's kind of just taking off. But yes we do think that creates opportunity in this environment.

Vincent Caintic

Analyst

Okay. Great. That's very helpful. And actually following up it's a good segue. Just I want to get a sense of maybe the merchant engagement and if any of those merchant discussions have evolved and changed? I guess, to your point about if there's trading down and what's happening? Is that the higher credit providers are tightening up? And I would assume that there would be more merchant need for your product. So if you could maybe talk about merchant engagement now that's the opportunities there? Thank you.

Mitch Fadel

Analyst

Yes. I think that's certainly happening with our -- from an SMB standpoint when you think about 10% net merchant growth year-over-year, you think about a couple of the signing just last quarter a couple of the top 50 furniture retailers like Levin and Slumberland and more in the pipeline. So yes, I think that's definitely happening. The pipeline is robust. The team at Acima is doing a great job bringing in new partners. Obviously, the bigger the partner the longer the cycle runs, but the regionals they're bringing in and the SMBs are bringing in they're just doing an excellent job.

Vincent Caintic

Analyst

Okay. Great. Very helpful. Thank you.

Mitch Fadel

Analyst

Thanks, Vincent.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Hoang Nguyen with TD Cowen. Your line is now open. Q – Hoang Nguyen: Hi, teams and congratulations on the quarter. Just wanted to touch on the guidance. It looks like you guys raised the high end of revenue guidance, but I mean didn't raise the high end for EBITDA and EPS. I mean, can you touch a little bit on the rationale behind that? I mean does it have to do with more mix of merchandise sales versus rental and have a follow-up?

Fahmi Karam

Analyst

Good morning, Hoang. Thanks for the question. Yes, I think the guide for the year especially on the revenue side, really reflects the GMV growth that we've experienced over the last couple of quarters. Obviously, this is the third quarter in a row where we've had nearly 20% growth in GMV and we started to reflect that now into the revenue guide. As far as the margin profile goes, I think we talked a little bit about it last time as far as having some really tough comps coming into the year especially, in the first half. We think that improves when we get into the second half especially on the Acima side Q2, we start to see some of that flow through from GMV come into play. So Q2 was better than Q1, and we expect Q3 to be better than Q2. And so nothing really as far as the mix goes, just more kind of where the trends have been heading towards the margin profile for the year and then where revenue is coming in. I think for Q3, the guidance consistent will be up on the revenue side and then flat to slightly better on the margin side.

Mitch Fadel

Analyst

I think I'd add to that, Hoang. This is Mitch. As Fahmi mentioned, as we talked about last quarter the margins take a little longer to catch up with the large GMV growth. We saw it this quarter right with the 310 basis point improvement in Acima's EBITDA margin. So, you're starting to see that flow through and there's more to come, but it does run a little behind the revenue. It's kind of the short answer to your question.

Fahmi Karam

Analyst

And I'd also say, from a guidance standpoint, the -- you got to remember, we had a lot of momentum going into the year. We had in the fourth quarter, we had almost 20% GMV growth at Acima and Rent-A-Center was starting to turn positive on the same-store sales. So we had momentum. We knew it was going to carry over. We saw a trade down coming and those kind of things. And our original guide was relatively stout. When you think about the revenue -- our original guide the revenue was up 3% year-over-year and the EPS is up about 6%. And now, we've updated it and I'm just talking midpoints -- when I say this, now revenue instead of 3% year-over-year is 5% and EPS instead of 6% above last year to 8%. So we started out with pretty high numbers. We have a small race here, but I just want to remind everybody we started out pretty high with the 3% year-over-year on revenue. Now it's 5%, and EPS at 6% now it's 8%. And as trade down continues, we hope to outperform. But we're pretty excited about the flow-through we're starting to see now as I mentioned with that -- when you look at the Acima margins compared to the first quarter. Q – Hoang Nguyen: Got it. And maybe, if you can talk a little bit about the court fight with the CFPB, you guys sued them in Texas, they sued back in Utah. I mean can you talk high level about the next step in the process? And maybe in terms of the value and what's the next milestone will be? Thank you.

Mitch Fadel

Analyst

Well, I can't -- with ongoing litigation, I can't say a lot in my prepared comments. We have to suffice as I said in my prepared comments we think they're formed shopping by filing in Utah when there was already our case pending in Texas, addressing the same subject. So we'll strongly contest our claims and defend ourselves from them trying to take over state regulatory framework that's governed our industry for a long time, like I said, in my prepared comments. But as far as next steps and all that, we'll have to leave it at that rather than get into a legal discussion about next steps - I'm not an attorney, and of course, they'd yell at me if I say any more than I've already said anyhow. So we'll have to leave it at that.

Hoang Nguyen

Analyst

Thank you.

Mitch Fadel

Analyst

Thanks, Hoang.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Bobby Griffin with Raymond James. Your line is now open.

Bobby Griffin

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is now open.

Good morning, everybody. Thanks for taking my questions and congrats on another good quarter of momentum. So Mitch, my first question really is kind of on that on a high-level aspect. It seems, if we look at your results as well as some of the peers' results the industry is really starting to see some inflection points whether it's on GMV growth, trade down, the portfolio performance, et cetera, what could potentially derail that? I guess, if the question is, is it just availability of credit becoming more available again? Or like, when you kind of sit here and you kind of think out on multi-quarter or even kind of a year basis what do you worry about that could derail some of this momentum?

Mitch Fadel

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is now open.

It's a good question. I see only -- I'm usually the optimist in the room, but I see only positive things coming Bobby with the trade down. Of course, we talk about all the time about how resilient we are in a good economy where we did great. I mean, we're still trying to catch the record numbers we did from stimulus money. So when people have money, we do great too. So it's such a resilient model. I think you're seeing it now -- also when -- some subprime -- traditional retail at subprime is having some headwinds, right, with a lot of closures out there but not the least owned industry. I mean, Rent-A-Center going positive as well as, of course, the alternative of Acima being within our retail partners is going strong, even though subprime retail, like I said, there's a lot of closures. So that's the benefit of our -- of the lease on business model. It's there for all retailers for those customers that don't have the credit, you don't have to start out in a subprime store. But there's actually tailwinds coming from even some of those closures I mentioned probably when you think about for companies like -- or segments like Rent-A-Center. So I don't know, Bobby, I'm not really -- I don't -- I just -- I worry about our strategy and things like that and are we executing in and talk to the team all the time about execution. I'm worried when -- are we taking advantage of every opportunity, things like that. But as far as something derailing the trend, I just -- I don't see anything.

Bobby Griffin

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is now open.

Fair enough. That's helpful. And I guess my second question is kind of a combo question just on the Acima side of the business. I mean, first, with the momentum that we now are seeing across the industry and as well as your results. What are you seeing competitively? Is everybody still behaving from a competitive standpoint because I know competition is tough out there? And then can you just define how you guys really define pipeline? Like what are those active merchants that are in conversation about actually engaging -- or is it just a list of potential merchants? Like what exactly is in the pipeline where we know how real it is and how the timing or maybe we can try to take an estimate at the timing of them becoming actual customers?

Mitch Fadel

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is now open.

When I say pipeline, I'm talking about active conversations, not just the list. Like last quarter, we talked about there's some good regional players in the pipeline, and then we end up signing Levin, Slumberland, Purple, iFIT, things like that. Some of those are regional furniture players, obviously, Purples more of a nationwide e-com player for mattresses even though they do have some stores and so forth. So it's -- we're talking about active conversations. And of course, our sales team of field sales and inside sales, a little over 100 people. They're -- they got tonnes of conversations going on with the 1 and 2 and 3-star merchants, and they're up 10% year-over-year, almost 10%. So they're knocking it out of the park as they have for many years. So competition is about the same. I wouldn't say competition has gotten any stiffer or crazier as far as offerings and things like that. I'd say that's been pretty consistent. Of course, competition on the Rent-A-Center side is probably less than it was when we think about the store closures that are happening out there with some of our -- not even -- not direct competitors, but indirect competitors that do business similarly with the same customers. So as I mentioned earlier, we see some of those closures as opportunities especially on the Rent-A-Center side.

Bobby Griffin

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is now open.

Thank you. Very helpful. Best of luck for the remainder of the year.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Brad Thomas with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Brad, your line is open.

Brad Thomas

Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets. Brad, your line is open.

Hi good morning and let me add my congrats on some nice results here as well. I wanted to follow up more on the growth Mitch. Yes absolutely well deserved. And I was hoping you could add a little bit more perspective on what you're seeing from a category perspective? And I say that with the knowledge that the -- many of your end markets the retailers are seeing very challenged trends. So curious what you're seeing from a category perspective in terms of some of those dynamics like new merchant growth and what you're seeing from the D2C and productivity standpoint as well? Thank you.

Fahmi Karam

Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets. Brad, your line is open.

Good morning Brad. This is Fahmi. Yes, I think from a category standpoint I think it's been pretty steady year-over-year as far as kind of our mix of where the GMV is coming from. But I would say that we are starting to see some -- a greater mix coming through the e-com channel. We've talked about Wayfair and ahsley.com. So we've seen a greater mix of e-com which tends for us to be heavier on the furniture side. So, when you look at the categories, I would say there's softer demand on furniture and some of those household categories that we've talked about. But for us we're offsetting that with some of the productivity gains and some of the merchant gains that we've talked about. So even though furniture may have some softer demand in applications on a per-location basis may be down what we're seeing is that 35% increase because of some of the things that we've talked about. So the mix is changing a little bit as far as whether brick-and-mortar versus e-com. I would say auto and jewelry also very strong when we look year-over-year from growth in applications and the growth in GMV standpoint. So it's pretty much -- the growth is coming across the board. We also talked about average ticket size. Average ticket size has come down. That's also partly of mix. Typically our average ticket size is lower on the e-com side, but there are some pricing benefits that we're seeing across the board as well. So some of that is also underwriting as we look to tighten on the bottom we do cut the average ticket size. So, I would say the growth is coming across the board across all categories.

Mitch Fadel

Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets. Brad, your line is open.

Yes. And when you add it -- when you add it up -- that's well said Fahmi. But Brad, when you add it up, it's -- it can be let's say less than intuitive that especially in the furniture business with the business a lot of people -- public companies at least and even private companies talking negative same-store sales and things like that. But when you add growth and trade down together, we still have growth in furniture. A good example of the large furniture company that reported numbers this morning was slightly negative revenue but we're up with that merchant. And is that trade down? Is that because our product offering is the best product offering they have? I don't know it's probably a combination of all that, but we're up with that merchant. So we can be up with a merchant that's down in revenue. And then when you add 10% growth in merchants to that factor that I just mentioned in other words add growth and trade down together, that's how you can be going up as a way of maybe what people think is happening in the furniture industry.

Brad Thomas

Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets. Brad, your line is open.

That's very helpful. Maybe to follow up a little bit on Bobby's question. I don't know that I'd say derailing, but a question that we had asked is sort of thinking about how different macro scenarios might impact you all. And so I guess the question Mitch would be, as you maybe look at a year and think about potentially tail opportunities on the economy and if we get discretionary really coming back maybe how do you think that affects you? And maybe vice versa if we saw unemployment rise how do you think Upbound Group fares?

Mitch Fadel

Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets. Brad, your line is open.

Yes. I think it's the resilience in the durability of the model when -- if we get more at one end of the spectrum maybe if the economy improves the -- you can start adding back some of the -- what Fahmi just referred to from an underwriting standpoint the bottom, you can add some more back to the bottom plus you get longer retention especially on the Rent-A-Center side when people have more money, so it helps the portfolio. So you can drive there eventually maybe you lose some of the trade down on the other end but that's the resiliency how it just goes back and forth like a swing a little bit and you end up strong in any economic environment. But I would say that as things like demand for household furnishings come back that overall, I see that is very positive for Rent-ACenter and for Acima whereas people start moving again, interest rates come down and people start moving again. People buying starter homes, usually selling a lot, especially in that starter home category. And of course, those are the ones most affected by these mortgage rates. So as people -- it's not just home depot and loans that will start benefiting from people moving around again. It's also our industry with the household furnishings and even appliances. So I think there's just plenty of tailwinds to think about and very few on the headwind side because again even when things get a whole lot better, we still perform just -- not just us but the industry will still perform because of the reasons I've already said. And if it gets a lot worse -- to your point about it, unemployment could skyrocket again, we certainly venture those cycles and we've done fine, because you get even more trade down. So obviously, we're pretty optimistic.

Brad Thomas

Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets. Brad, your line is open.

Thank you. Thanks you so much, Mitch.

Mitch Fadel

Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets. Brad, your line is open.

Thanks Brad.

Operator

Operator

One moment for the next question. The next question comes from Derek Sommers with Jefferies. Your line is open.

Derek Sommers

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is open.

Hi. Good morning, everyone. What's the typical GMV ramp time when you are on board with the new retail partner?

Mitch Fadel

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is open.

The ramp time -- it supposedly depends on the industry a little bit and how big they are. The bigger they are, it ramps up a little slower, because they might put it in a few stores to start and make sure everything is working and so forth. If you've got a two-store chain, there maybe very little ramp up. I mean very little time. By the second month, you might be at your run rate. So I think it candidly depends but it doesn't take a long time. Let me just say that. It's a couple of months. Even on the big ones, it's still only a couple of months to ramp up. In staffed versus unstaffed, the staffed stores will ramp up faster than the unstaffed.

Derek Sommers

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is open.

Great. Thanks. Helpful color there. And then just one quick one on the RAC store count, how should we think about store count moving forward? Was most of that kind of consolidation exercise concentrated in this quarter? And how do you think about same-store sales trends moving forward?

Mitch Fadel

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is open.

Yes, good question. Yes, I think it was concentrated in that quarter. We don't see a lot more this year. Of course, we're always looking to optimize. We've opened stores too. And so it all depends on the market. But no, we don't see that from an ongoing standpoint. We had -- through the pandemic and with a seamless money we didn't have any underperforming store. So as we looked at here three years away from that that in the majority of what we've closed it's only 2% or 3% of our stores, but the majority were underperforming. I also want to point out that -- the majority of those stores almost all of them were less than three miles from another Rent-A-Center – it be like 90% of them were less than three miles from another Rent-A-Center and they are underperforming. So we're able to still serve those customers. We run reports that the apps team Anthony and his team look at every week where we take the customers out of those closed stores. When we put them in the next closest store we run the reports to see how -- what our retention level is for those customers as we put them in different stores and the report is just looking at it the other day the weekly report where the stores in there for right now because it goes back two years. The stores on the report right now that we've closed average seven months of closure and we're over 80% retention of those customers. So it's pretty high retention when you get rid of get rid of the overhead of a store and keep that level of customers even seven months later on average. So -- but the short answer to your question is going forward we don't see a lot more of that. We're in positive territory same-store sales. We see that continuing through the rest of the year. We don't see anything bringing that back down to negative territory. So we continue to expect that will be low single-digits. It's not -- we're not going to start putting Acima numbers on the board at Rent-A-Center. But I think it's still a low single-digit same-store sales growth as we move forward.

Derek Sommers

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is open.

Great. Thanks for that. That’s all for me.

Mitch Fadel

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is open.

Thanks, Derek.

Operator

Operator

One moment for the next question. The next question comes from John Rowan with Janney Montgomery Scott. Your line is now open.

John Rowan

Analyst · Janney Montgomery Scott. Your line is now open.

Hey, guys. Good morning. So obviously you can see the trade down pretty clearly in the Acima business with the applications coming down from a waterfall. But are you seeing the same type of trade-down benefit in the core RAC business that you're seeing from whatever it might be people tightening up above you because of impending or recently enacted credit card regulations?

Mitch Fadel

Analyst · Janney Montgomery Scott. Your line is now open.

Yes. Good question, John. It's certainly not as direct at Rent-A-Center right? You don't really see it. It takes a little longer because the customer is not in a waterfall at a retailer or online where they got denied and then their next option would be a lease. So it takes longer. I'd say positive same-store sales will tell us we're seeing a little. Certainly the vantage scores don't have the increase like we're seeing at Acima things like that. But I think that we're seeing a little bit. It's just a lot slower happening. And it probably picks up over we don't have it in our forecast that a lot of trade down would pick up on the Rent-A-Center side going forward but it probably picks up. It just takes a little longer because it's not that direct sale like at a retail partner the way Acima does it. But I mentioned it earlier too John I think there's some opportunities. There are some store closures out there where Rent-A-Center and they're in our neighborhoods. Some of the ones the two larger chains nationwide that announced closures in the last couple of weeks. We're in the same neighborhood. So we see that only as an opportunity. And thankfully on the Acima side we don't do business with one of those two. So it's nothing positive to us.

John Rowan

Analyst · Janney Montgomery Scott. Your line is now open.

Okay. And I'm going to ask one question on the CFPB broad question if you can answer it, I won't hold it against you. But I'm just trying to understand, the main tenant of your lawsuit against them, I'm assuming, it's an assumption that it's based on the legal definition of a lease in Dodd-Frank and whether or not the CFPB actually has jurisdiction over it. Is that correct?

Mitch Fadel

Analyst · Janney Montgomery Scott. Your line is now open.

Well, as I said in my prepared comments, and we think there -- we see them trying to do is expand our authority and you serve the state regulatory framework that governs our industry and that's really the gist of it.

John Rowan

Analyst · Janney Montgomery Scott. Your line is now open.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Mitch Fadel

Analyst · Janney Montgomery Scott. Your line is now open.

Thanks John.

Operator

Operator

One moment for our next question. [Operator Instructions] The next question comes from the line of Carla Casella with JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Carla Casella

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Hi. Thank you. You talked about the store closures and it sounds like you're getting good transfer retention to your other stores. Have you given the number of how many more you see opportunities to close? And if there's any specific kind of regions where they're concentrated?

Mitch Fadel

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is open.

No, Carla, we haven't -- we don't really see any more this year. Now would there be one or two sprinkled in of course. I mean, we lose leases and markets change and so forth. And we opened a few stores here and there as we see the opportunity as well. So no we haven't given that number, but as I mentioned we don't see any more on the near horizon anyhow. That was like a -- we did a review of just about every store in the system or certainly every underperforming store in the system. And also to answer your question is no, it wasn't regional. It was where we had an underperforming store and another store within three miles -- less than three miles at the vast majority. So -- but now there wasn't any one region of the country or anything like that.

Carla Casella

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Okay. Great. And then, you talked about deleveraging from both, EBITDA or cash flow as well as paying down debt. It looks like you're -- really the only debt payable right now is the ABL. Can you just talk about -- are you thinking about something more broadly than that? Or maybe ABL eventually addressed them on the term loan as you -- with your free cash flow?

Fahmi Karam

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Yeah. Hey Carlo, it's Fahmi. Yeah, we have about $80 million outstanding on the ABL. But I think the deleveraging comment would be more -- it's going to be a combination of paying down the ABL. We can also prepay the term loan depending on where our cash flow is, but it will be a combination of EBITDA growth as well as actually paying down some of that gross debt. Cash flows obviously this year have been -- the free cash flow number has been wide compared to year-over-year as we fund the GMV growth at Acima and fund some of the technology advancements that Mitch mentioned. But we do see that as some of the growth changes throughout the rest of the year as we comp over some of the bigger numbers year-over-year we do expect free cash flow to increase in the second half of the year and we guided for the third quarter of $60 million to $75 million. And part of that will go down to paying down debt.

Carla Casella

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Okay. Great. That's helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

I am showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn it back to our Chief Executive Officer Mitch Fadel, for closing remarks.

Mitch Fadel

Analyst

Thank you, Elizabeth and thank you to everyone who joined us today for an update on our second quarter and our outlook for the rest of the year. I'm really thankful for the collective efforts of my teammates and our merchants who helped deliver such strong GMV and the same-store sales results for the quarter. And we're grateful for your interest and your support. And we look forward to updating you next quarter on our continued progress towards the goals we've outlined. So have a great day everybody. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you for joining the participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.