SAN FRANCISCO, July 14, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP reminds investors in Aaron’s, Inc. (NYSE:AAN) of the August 18, 2017 Lead Plaintiff deadline in the pending securities class action.
If you purchased or otherwise acquired securities of AAN between February 6, 2015 and October 29, 2015 and suffered losses contact Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP. For more information visit:
https://www.hbsslaw.com/cases/AAN
or contact Reed Kathrein, who is leading the firm’s investigation, by calling 510-725-3000 or emailing AAN@hbsslaw.com.
During earnings conference calls with investors, Defendants repeatedly emphasized competitive strengths attributable to Aaron’s Progressive Finance Holdings subsidiary. More specifically, Defendants distinguished Progressive from other virtual rent-to-own competitors and cited its “centrally-automated decisioning algorithms…the beauty of the model is our ability to make changes at any time to the underwriting algorithm, which we do on an ongoing basis.”
On April 24, 2015, Defendants stated “[w]e are increasing our previously announced full-year guidance to reflect Progressive’s strong results in the quarter.”
Then, during an earnings conference call for the second quarter of 2015 held on July 24, 2015, the Company’s CEO highlighted Progressive’s success: “Progressive continues to exceed our expectations. Revenues and margins improved significantly. Our product is clearly resonating….we believe we have the industry-leading, virtual lease-to-own solution in the market.”
On October 30, 2015, Aaron’s disclosed that Progressive lost two critical data feeds in February 2015, which negatively impacted the Company’s ability to make loans and collect payments. In addition, Defendants lowered the full-year guidance because “higher bad debt expense and merchandise write offs due to a temporary interruption of certain data attributes we use to approve leases, as well as software issues that delayed our ability to identify and begin collections on certain delinquent loans.”
Progressive’s CEO explained “[w]e discovered the issues – of course, we knew we had lost the data and developed a plan to replace it in February and March and it was replaced in April.” Aaron’s CEO reiterated “[w]e lost access to the attributes in February 2015 and replaced them in April 2015.”
These revelations drove the price of Aaron shares down $8.88, or over 26%, to close at $24.67 on October 30, 2015.
“The fact that Progressive lost critical data feeds in February 2015 is clearly something any reasonable investor would consider important when deciding whether or not to invest in the Company,” said Hagens Berman partner Reed Kathrein. “That fact should have been disclosed.”
Whistleblowers: Persons with non-public information regarding Aaron’s should consider their options to help in the investigation or take advantage of the SEC Whistleblower program. Under the new SEC whistleblower program, whistleblowers who provide original information may receive rewards totaling up to 30 percent of any successful recovery made by the SEC. For more information, call Reed Kathrein at 510-725-3000 or email AAN@hbsslaw.com.
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