The Aaron's Company is an American lease-to-own retailer. The company focuses on leases and retail sales of furniture, electronics, appliances, and computers. The company sells through the company-operated and franchised stores, e-commerce platform (Aarons.com) Locations , the Aaron's Company has 1,340 stores: 1,092 company-operated stores (in 43 states and Canada) and 248 independently owned and operated franchised stores in 35 states and Canada. History Aaron Rents, Inc. was founded by R. Charles Loudermilk, Sr. in 1955. In September 2008, Aaron's announced the sale of its Corporate Furnishings division to CORT Business Services, part of Berkshire Hathaway. Aaron's Corporate Furnishings division, which operated 47 stores, recorded revenues of approximately $99 million in 2007. As of December 31, 2016, Aaron's had 1,864 stores located in 28 states and the District of Columbia and Canada. In addition, they had 699 independently owned franchised stores in 46 states and Canada. On July 29, 2020, Aaron's Holdings Company, Inc. announced plans to split into two companies: PROG Holdings, Inc. and The Aaron's Company, Inc. PROG Holdings, with the ticker symbol "PRG" (), remained in the S&P Midcap 400 stock index but its Global Industry Classification Standard was changed to "Consumer Finance". The Aaron's Company continueed to trade under the ticker symbol "AAN" () but was moved into the S&P Smallcap 600. Controversy In February 2013, customers sued Aaron's for allegedly using spyware on rented computers to send over 185,000 emails to the rental company, including customers' Social Security numbers, passwords and captured keystrokes, as well as explicit images. The Aaron's Company officials had previously said that the company had not installed the spyware, and individual franchisees were responsible. In October 2013, Aaron's agreed to a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission that limited how it used monitoring technology and ordered it to delete customer information that had been improperly collected. Sponsorships NASCAR racing: Aaron's entered NASCAR jumping in between multiple teams and drivers, sponsoring drivers such as Johnny Benson Jr., Kenny Wallace, and Hermie Sadler. In 2008, Aaron's then became the full-time sponsor for the team Michael Waltrip Racing in NASCAR's Monster Energy Cup Series for a couple of years, sponsoring drivers such as David Reutimann, Michael McDowell, Mark Martin, Brian Vickers, and David Ragan in a scheme that was named the "Aaron's Dream Machine". Aaron's was also the namesake of the spring race at Talladega Superspeedway, the Aaron's 499, along with the Xfinity Series