GameStop Purchases Rhino Retail Chain From Blockbuster

Officials from global movie and video game rental franchise Blockbuster have announced that the company has reached an agreement to sell its Rhino Video Games chain to major video game retailer GameStop. The sale is expected to close by the end of January. GameStop itself earlier this week confirmed that the retailer experienced a very prosperous holiday season, and reported a 29 percent increase in sales to $1.7 billion, on continuing hardware sales, despite console shortages. The sale of Rhino Video Games, which specializes in buying, selling and trading video games, was noted by Blockbuster CEO and chairman John Antioco in a statement released today as being “in line with our goal to maintain focus on our Blockbuster-branded assets.” Rhino currently operates 72 stores located in the southeastern U.S. Commenting on the purchase, GameStop chairman and CEO R. Richard Fontaine stated, “The integration of the Rhino group into the growing portfolio of GameStop stores will result in operating synergies while being accretive to earnings.” He added: “The location of most Rhino stores do not overlap existing GameStop sites, and primarily serve secondary and tertiary markets where we have been very successful. Furthermore, the Rhino business model, and a very game oriented management team, will fit seamlessly into the GameStop culture.”