Target Corporation Essay Example for Free

stigma potbelly stove EssayOperatorLadies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the cig art Corporations Fourth Quarter Earnings Release Conference Call. During the presentation, all participants go away be in a listen-only mode. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is creation tempered Wednesday, February 26, 2014. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Gregg Steinhafel, Chairman, President and Chief administrator Officer. Please go forward.Gregg Steinhafel Chairman, President and CEO erect morning, and welcome to our 2013 fourth stern earnings conference call. On the line with me today be Kathy Tesija, Executive Vice President of Merchandising and pot Mulligan, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. This morning, I will provide a high level summary of our fourth quarter results and st cropgic formerities for the yr ahead, and Kathy will discuss category results, node insights, and the vacation conci liate. And finally, John will provide more(prenominal)(prenominal) period on our financial motion, along with our financial give awaylook for 2014. Following Johns remarks, well open the phone lines for a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, we atomic number 18 joined on this conference call by layors and otherwises who are listening to our comments via webcast. Following this conference call, John Hulbert and John Mulligan will be available through prohibited the day to answer any follow-up questions you whitethorn study. Also as a reminder, any forward-looking statements that we make this morning are subject to risks and uncertainties, the ab by important of which are described in the 8-K we filed this morning.Finally, in these remarks, we refer to adjusted earnings per share, which is a non-GAAP financial measure. A reconciliation to our GAAP results is take ond in this mornings press release post on our Investor Relations website. tushs fourth quarter financ ial results reflect better than forestalled U.S fractions performance in the eldest collar weeks of the holiday normalize, followed by meaningfully softer results, following our December 19th declaration that criminals had gained access to invitee payment phone card data in our U.S stores. In total, fourth quarter similar gross(a) revenue decreased 2.5% consistent with our updated guidance in January. Throughout the quarter ourteam issued the commercial enterprise extremely rise up, adjusting twain inventory and expenses to match the promptly changing pace of sales. As a result, our US trading operations generated fourth quarter adjusted earnings per share of $1.30 at the high-end of the updated guidance we provided in January. In Canada, we proceeded diligently to leverage holiday traffic in an effort to clear excess inventory. Mark atomic reactors resulting from this effort horde a very low gross bound rate, but allowed us to reduce second-rate inventory per sto re in Canada by approximately 30% between the author and end of the fourth quarter.Canadian segment EPS dilution was $0.40 in the quarter, $0.05 better than the updated guidance we provided in January. We are jolly that our archaeozoic cycle Canadian stores thrust take inn the most emendment giving us government agency that we will relate to befool continued improvement across all our Canadian stores in 2014. Fourth quarter GAAP EPS of $0.81 reflects U.S and Canadian segment performance along with costs tie in to our modern restructuring in data geological fault along with small accounting and tax matters. As we work to organise the impact of the mid-December data happy chance, we have put the welfare of our lymph nodes at the center of all(prenominal) decision weve made. We have communicated in early and ofttimes providing the best instruction we had about naked facts in on divergence on the ongoing away investigation. We consistently assured our guests that they would have zero liability for any unauthorized charges on their card accounts resulting from the infract.We change magnitude fraud detection for REDcard holders and extended free credit monitoring and identity theft protection for any guests who has ever shopped one of our U.S stores. We are very sorry for the impact this faulting has had on our guests, team members and other stakeholders and I want to reiterate that we are committed for making things right. We know these initial go are part of a longer process. We continue to listen to our guests and we know that this incident and recent security breaches at other companies have shaken their confidence in both Target and the U.S payment system more broadly. To rebuild guest confidence, were committed to an throughout review in cooperation with third-party experts to understand how the breach occurred, the identification and acceleration of solutions to provide enhanced protection in the future and engagement with third-party experts to protect the industry and consumers from future threats.Accordingly, were taking the following steps. We are conducting an end-to-end forensic investigationof our processes, systems and personnel to make informed decisions on capableness security enhancements. We are accelerating the adoption of advanced chip enabled applied science, put more than $ ascorbic acid million to equip our stores and to issue Target branded smart chip credit and debit cards. We have long supported this more secured technology a broad adoption in the U.S market has been elusive. We believe that recent events will service the industry to reach a tipping point to an accelerated option in the U.S and we are investing to ensure that Target is a clear leader in thrust this change. We are working collaboratively with a broad set of stakeholders in the payment card space including banks, retailers, trade associations, payment processors and networks to share in advance best practices and foster futu re innovation. We helped launch and will be an active agent leader in retail industry, cyber security and data privacy initiative.In addition, we are investing $5 million in a rising compact with the Better Business Bureau and National Cyber Security Alliance and the National Cyber Forensics and Training Alliance to advance public education around cyber security and the dangers of consumer scams. term we whoremongert yet assess the full impact of this crime against Target and our guests, were pleased that sales have started to recover from the trends we observed following breach related announcements in December and January. Importantly, because were in a firm financial position, we hold back to absorb any near-term financial impacts while proceed to invest in projects that are key to our long-term success. Our Company has a long history of innovation, disciplined management, and a strong long-term financial performance and we are committed to upholding the principles which h as have sustained this Company success for more decades.And while 2013 was a disappointing year financially, we have entered the New Year with the right plans in place to grow profitably and generate meaningfully improved financial performance in 2014 and beyond. In the U.S., we have demonstrated our ability to manage the business with discipline and generate strong financial performance even in a challenging environment. In fact, Kathy will outline in more detail we were very pleased with our holiday season results prior to the announcement of the data breach. In preparation for fourth quarter, we may change this to our holiday promotion and marketing and we were pleased that our in stocks were running at all-time highs. As a result, U.S segment fourth quartersales were running ahead of plan prior to December 19th. Looking ahead, we will apply the insights we gained in the holiday season to connect with our guests at delivering merchandize and promotions thoughtfully designed to appeal to them based on whats on their mind at each point in the year, moving Target beyond compelling, to becoming irresistible for our guests.We made enormous progress in our multichannel efforts throughout 2013 as we meaningfully increased conversion both on our website and on our energetic apps. We acquired Chefs Catalog, Cooking.com and Dermstore, extending our online assortment by providing our guests access to additional high-end brands in key post and strike categories. We launched Cartwheel, our unique mobile savings tool which has far exceeded impartations in both adoption and engagement and we accelerated our investments in flexible fulfillment. As a result, throughout the year, growth in our digital traffic and sales outpaced industry averages. We launched in-store pick up chain-wide at the beginning of November and with very little marketing, this untried pass became a meaningful driver of digital traffic and sales. Our store teams did an outstanding job deliveri ng great servicing when guests arrived to pick up these orders and this is particularly impressive since we launched the service during the busiest time of the year.We will continue to invest in systems, data and processes to enhance our flexible fulfillment capabilities in 2014 and beyond. In our stores we are committed to enhancing the guest sleep together by adding dedicated service to key categories like beauty, baby and electronics and by providing training and technology that allows our stores team to go beyond providing basic service to resolving problems for our guests. And were continuing to pilot innovations to our store formats. Based on the initial rollout of the CityTarget format and the high single digit comparable sales were seeing in our guerilla year CityTarget stores, were analyzing opportunities to redeem the size and enhance the flexibility of this format opening up a wider universe of potential sites in dense urban cranial orbits. musical composition on t he work on CityTarget continues, weve in addition developed a separate smaller format called Target Express at about 15% of the size of one of our general merchandize stores, we believe this design provides us with a fantastic opportunity to expand into new trade areas providing a convenient solution to guests who notify easily visit one of our other formats. objet dart we expect to offer a carefully curated assortment in frequencycategories like food, health care, beauty and other household essentials, Target Express will also offer discretionary categories including home, electronics and seasonal. Throughout the store we will feature our own brands which offer guests an unvanquishable combination of quality and price. We plan to open our freshman pilot location of this format here in our home market in July so we do-nothing carefully study both operational and financial results before we determine our plans to expand this format to other markets. Throughout the organization w e continue to risk new opportunities to optimize expenses, freeing up resources we can apply to new initiatives. In 2013 our teams saved approximately $200 million by reprioritizing their activities and finding more streamlined ways to get things done. Our expense optimization efforts are not a short-term project but a complete overall of the way we work and the team continues to find new opportunities.As a result, we expect the benefit of our expense optimization efforts to reach $1 billion in annualized savings by 2015. Im proud that our entire team has embraced this effort to transform how we work. In Canada the team has moved from a year steeringed on opening a record number of stores to optimizing the business in run state. As we enter 2014 with a much cleaner inventory position, the teams number one operational focus is on in-stocks, ensuring we have the right quantity of each item in the right place at the right time. In addition, we continue to invest in technology and tr aining to enhance both the tools our team uses and their ability to deploy them most effectively. Were also continuing to implement innovative marketing and merchandizing programs in Canada to raise consciousness for our frequency categories like grocery, household essentials, beauty and healthcare.Throughout 2014 we will focus on conveying the depth and breadth of our assortment in those categories and the unbeatable note rank we provide to our everyday pricing, 5% of the awards, price match and our flier. With enhanced guest awareness of our unbeatable prices combine with the benefit of improved operations, we expect guest shop frequency to build throughout 2014, driving improvement in sales and profitability. While 2013 will clearly be remembered as the challenging year, I am proud of teams efforts to transform our business and position the company for long-term success. And I want to sincerely thank the Target team for their tireless effort to help our guests recover from th e data breach. While there is much more workto be done, Im inspired by their singular focus on our guests and making things right. As a result, Im confident we will look back on this incident and see that we emerged from it even stronger than before. Now Kathy will provide more detail on our fourth quarter results and key initiatives as we enter 2014. Kathy?Kathy Tesija EVP, MerchandisingThanks, Gregg. In our farthermost conference call, we outlined our plans for the holiday season and mentioned that fourth quarter sales were on track through the first half of November. As we progressed through Black Friday week and the first two weeks of December, guests continued to respond to our promotions and sales ran ahead of our plan. Following the data breach announcement and the rapid change in the pace of our sales, the team reacted cursorilyly making nimble adjustments to minimize our excess inventory. This quick response allowed us to end the year with a clean inventory position. And while our fourth quarter gross rim reflected the addition of clearance operation resulting from the sales lag, our team did a great job minimizing the impact. As we built our holiday plans, our goal was to cut through the clutter and reach our guests with compelling offers on exciting merchandize, specifically we aligned our weekly deals and events so guests were receiving a clear message across all convey. And because our guests are budget conscious and love to find deals, we intentionally layered promotions across our circular, cartwheel and our catalog to provide unbeatable value.We used our direct channels to drive urgency at key points of the season and we offered more broad wariness-getting promotions like 40% off sweaters. Consistent with past years, we featured hot deals on key items but attracted more attention by offering deeper discounts on fewer items and we were very pleased with the guest response. For the quarter overall, our non-discretionary categories genera lly aphorism the strongest sales performance. However, on our more discretionary categories electronics saw an increase in fourth quarter comparable sales led by mobile phones, tablets and video game hardware and software. We also saw congener effectuality in our sporting goods and housewares categories. Digital channels had a very strong holiday season. Thanksgiving was our biggest digital sales day ever with mobile devices accounting for a full 25% of those sales. We were recently recognized as having the most browsed app by a smartphone and tablet in 2013and Mobile Commerce day-to-day just named Target Mobile Retailer and Commerce Website of the Year. This is the second time weve been named Mobile Retailer of the Year and were pleased to be the only retailer to be honored with the award twice. An important factor in our digital success was the fourth quarter rollout of the opportunity to buy online and pick up in-store.In-store pick up requests represented about 10% of fourth quarter digital orders but they peaked at a much higher(prenominal) rate before Christmas as guests relied on the service as a great solution for last-minute gift shop. About 30% of store visits to pick up an online order resulted in store shopping on that same trip and the size of that store transaction was much larger than an average store trip. While weve rolled out the capabilities with an external commitment to have orders raise in four hours or less, our team quickly attained our internal goal to have most orders ready in one hour or better. Our survey showed consistently high levels of guest satisfaction with this service and this capability has accelerated our mobile conversion rates. Were also pleased with the continued growth of Cartwheel, our digital savings app, which ended 2013 with over 5 million users who have already saved more than $43 million. younger guests are particularly engaged by Cartwheel as more than half of its users are Millennials, a much higher perce ntage than they represent in our overall guest base.Redemption rates on Cartwheel are more than 10 times higher than DC and other direct channels like receipt marketing and e-mail and our analysis indicate that its driving incremental trips and sales. Our pre-Black Friday deals resulted in one of the biggest days ever for Cartwheel as they drove one-third of our active users into Target stores on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. We continue to work to enhance the Cartwheel experience. We recently added the ability to scan bar codes to find out if theres a Cartwheel deal on an item and added the capability to sign up for Cartwheel directly through a Target account and email while continuing to provide access to the App through Facebook. As Gregg mentioned, we continue to listen to our guests to understand how we can help them move beyond the data breach and feel confident in shopping at Target. While sales have started to recover in recent weeks and sentiment metrics have begun to improve most notably among our best guests. We continue to invest to ensure this recovery continues. Beyond our efforts in datasecurity and chip enabled technology were applying insights from the holiday season to make our merchandise stores and digital channels even more irresistible to our guests.We continue to innovate in ways that differentiate both our product assortments and the guest experience, and were investing in pricing and promotions to make our value proposition even stronger. Were very pleased with the response to Peter Pilotto for Target our most recent designer partnership which launched earlier this month. This collection which features a limited edition assortment of womens apparel, accessories and swimwear is available at most of our U.S. and Canadian stores and on target.com. We have also partnered with Net-a-Porter.com to offer a curated assortment of the collection to fans across the globe. With lots of social media buzz we a saw long lines outside many of ou r urban stores on the morning of the launch, and the collection quickly became Net-a-Porters fastest selling collaboration in history. Based on last years results Target and Sports Illustrated are once again partnering in support of the magazines annual swimsuit issue which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Target is the exclusive mass retail advertizer and official marketing partner for the issue.This years partnership includes the new 20 page flip cover that celebrates swimsuit style over the past 50 years and features Targets limited edition swimwear collection. The collection launched at Target stores and on target.com February 17, in advance of the issues on stand date and includes 10 black, gold and ivory swimsuits priced from $15 to $30. Earlier this month, Target began offering AMBAR a new apparel collection designed with the Latina guest in mind. AMBAR is set in 50 U.S. stores this month and is also available on target.com. The line of apparel and accessories features vibrant prints and flattering cuts and silhouettes. This stylish and affordable collection has items ranging from $17 to $40. This spring Target will introduce an assortment of premium skincare featuring seven notable brands, four of which will be exclusively sold at Target. 29 by Lydia Mondavi, Borghese, Laneige and MD Complete by Dr. Zelickson along side industry positron emission tomography Vichy, La Roche Posay and Own Skin Health. These brands will be merchandised in two intelligible sections, dermatological skincare and specialty skincare, and they have already launched on target.com.Well begin rolling out the assortment to 749 U.S. Target stores beginning in March. So whats plausibly to be the biggest Blu-rayand DVD release of the year Target will offer an exclusive addition of Catching Fire the second film in The hurt Games trilogy in stores and on target.com next month. The Target exclusive Blu-ray addition includes 45 minutes of exclusive content from never be fore seen footage and cast interviews to a dirty dog the scenes looks at the making of the film. This spring award winning singer Shakira is teaming up with Target for her 10th studio album and our exclusive deluxe edition featuring three bonus tracks hit stores on March 25. We announced the partnership and kicked off album preordering with a special spot during the 56th Annual Grammy Awards in January. Last month we became the exclusive retailer to feature Beats music playlists. Beats music is curated digital music streaming services that allows its users to peep into the personal music libraries of their favorite artists and brands and have them create playlists just for them.By subscribing to Targets playlist guest can expect a very mix of songs inspired by Targets rich heritage of music and the taste of the millions who shop for albums at Target each year. In December we launched The Awesome Shop, a beta site that features the top target products recently pinned on Pinterest. The site lets guests explore, get inspired and see what other guests love just like they do in stores. Awesome Shop highlighted the best of the best by only featuring items at the target.com review of four stars or better. Were also leveraging Pinterest in other unique way to collaborate with three of the sites most influential pinners on a series of party planning collections that will make it easy to make up a Pinterest worthy event. Joy Cho of Oh Joy, Jan Halvarson of Poppytalk and Kate Arends of Wit Delight will each create limited time only collections launched over the course of 2014 including party decor, wallpaper products and serving pieces designed in their signature esthetic.Beyond differentiated merchandise, we continue to provide enhanced service in key areas of the store. Based on guest response to last years launch we have expanded the Target Beauty Concierges program to more than 300 stores across the country with new markets including New York, New Jersey, San F rancisco and Dallas-Fort Worth. These beauty consultants are brand agnostic and provide guests with detailed, unbiased information and a friendly guinea pig in what can often be an intermediating category. We also continue to see great results from the pilot of our new baby layout, a completely redesigned shoppingexperience that offers guests inspiring insightful solutions combined with the great value theyve come to expect from Target. This new layout features a dedicated service desk with a knowledgeable baby advisor to help guests navigate the area and provide unbiased product information. Digital screens and iPads feature inspiration and interactive comparison tools and BabyCenter content such as buying guides and product reviews We have also incorporated an in department registry kiosk for expecting moms or guests looking to give a gift.Merchandised displays have been lowered so guests can more easily interact with large products by travel systems in stores. We have removed ba rriers to enhance navigation between apparel, gear and baby essentials and we have highlighted the availability of additional online only items in key categories. This summer we plan to grow from 30 stores to more than 200 locations featuring this enhanced baby experience. And based on encouraging initial results in 2014 well expand our test of using mannequins in apparel in our largest format U.S. stores to elevate the store experience, create an enhanced mind of discovery and bring our unique deigns to life. We also continued to augment our digital capabilities driving traffic and sales to all of our channels. Online our top priority in 2014 is continuing to improve the guest experience. All of our efforts will be designed to make things simple, seamless and enjoyable for our guests.To support this priority we continue to hire external natural endowment with deep functional expertise in online merchandising, site merchandising, mobile and analytics. We have recently made enhance ments focused on search, product information and checkout making it easier for guests to browse and purchase. In addition now nearly all store products are viable online making this the only place that guests can use Targets full assortment. Importantly were making enhancements while continuing to focus on stability and speed, as a result target.com consistently ranks in the top 10 for retailer site availability and performance. Given the profile of our guests, mobile is more important at Target than for many of our peers. For example, Targets guest traffic from tablets and mobile phones is greater than our traffic from traditional computers and the shift towards mobile shows no signs of slowing down. In fact usage of the Target App bivalent in the short period between last summer and the end of the year.To maintain our strong momentum in mobile were testing and nurture from new features including ListBuilding, Mapping and Cartwheel capabilities launched during the holiday season. Were improving conversion by streamlining checkouts and enhancing product information and dynamic content and we are investing to amplify the in-store mobile experience by rolling out guided maps, in-store search and expanded assortment chain wide later this year. We also continue to invest in our flexible fulfillment capabilities which combine the strengths of our digital, store and distribution aspects to provide speed and convenience for our guests. These capabilities allow our stores to add value in new ways, serve our guests as both showroom and fulfillment centers. Following the holiday seasons success of in-store pick up we are moving quickly to roll out the capabilities to shift online orders from our stores this fall. This new capability will create multiple benefits for both Target as our guests, including shorter shipping times, reduced expenses, lower markdown rates and improved in-stocks.And because our investments in flexible fulfillment drive greater utilization of o ur existing stores and distribution center summations, we expect to earn an outstanding return on these investments over time. Finally, were pleased with initial performance of Target Ticket, our streaming video service and we continue to invest in features to better serve guest changing needs and behaviors both inside and outside their home. In 2014 we will coordinate our promotions across channels to provide irresistible video offers across our stores, Target.com and Target Ticket. While our fourth quarter results softened following the December 19 announcement of the data breach, we are pleased with the guest response to our holiday season merchandizing and marketing efforts and were confident in our plans for 2014.As always our focus remains on our guests helping them regain their confidence in their Target while delivering irresistible content and experiences in every channel. We believe that our efforts will drive a continued recovery in the pace of our sales and position Tar get for utile growth in 2014 and beyond. Now, John will share his insights on our fourth quarter financial performance and our plans for the coming year. John?John Mulligan EVP and CFOThanks, Kathy. Our fourth quarter financial results reflect strong efforts by our team to handle separate challenges in both our U.S. and Canadian segments. In the U.S. comparable sales waned 2.5% consistent with theupdated guidance we provided in our January press release. This sales performance reflects a 5.5% decline in transactions partially offset by an increase in average ticket. Prior to the announcement of the data breach, fourth quarter comparable sales were running positive reflecting the success of our holiday merchandizing marketing plan. Immediately following news of the breach, sales rancid meaningfully negative but began to recover in January. And while its impossible to measure precisely, we believe we would have seen even more improvement had there not been extreme weather across m uch of the country. Fourth quarter sales penetration on our REDcards was 20.9%, up 5.4 percentage points from a year ago. While the rate of increase slowed down following the breach, year-over-year penetration continued to grow hundreds of cornerstone points through the end of the quarter.Fourth quarter U.S. EBITDA and EBIT margin rates were down more than a percentage point from last years rates, which we were advised to reflect combined results from our former U.S. retail and credit card segments. These profit margins were below our expectations going into the quarter, driven almost entirely by gross margin rate which declined about 20 root points from the year ago. This performance reflects about 20 basis points of benefit from this years change in vendor payments offset by higher than expected markdowns related to the 10% off we offered prior to Christmas as puff up as the impact of clearance markdowns at the end of the holiday season. Margin mix was somewhat less favorable t han the recent quarters, driven by strong sales in electronics. While below our expectations, fourth quarter U.S. segment gross margin rate was remarkably strong considering the team had to rapidly manage excess inventory in the middle of the quarter when we experienced a sudden change in the pace of sales following the data breach announcement. Our fourth quarter U.S. segment SGA rate was 18.4%, about 110 basis points above last years revised rate.About 50 basis points of this headwind was related to the credit card portfolio reflecting a smaller asset base, last years reserve release and this years profit sharing ar strayment with TD Bank. Another 20 basis points of headwind was driven by this years change in member payments. The remaining unfavorability reflects the deleveraging effort of negative comp sales. The fact that we experienced only 40 basis points of deleverage reflects strong guarantee of variable expenses, given the magnitude of our comparable sales decline. In the Canadian segment, salescame in just below expectations. Importantly, as Gregg mentioned, we took proceeds of holiday traffic to clear through a significant amount of excess inventory in the quarter. And while we expect some small inactive issues with long lean receipts this year, the Canadian segment ended 2013 in a much cleaner inventory position, paving the way for smoother operations in 2014. In all, the segment drove $0.40 of EPS dilution in the fourth quarter better than the expectations we provided in our January press release. Turning now to our consolidated metrics, fourth quarter interest expense was 21% lower than last year reflecting the continued benefit of debt retirement funded by the proceeds from the sale of the credit card portfolio. We gainful dividends of $0.43 per share in the quarter, an increase of more than 19% from fourth quarter 2012.This was our 185th consecutive quarter in which our company has paid a dividend and 2013 marked the forty-second year of an nual dividend increases, a track record of few companies to match. Consistent with last quarter, we didnt purchase any shares in the fourth quarter reflecting current performance and our desire to maintain our debt rating in the middle A range. This approach aligns with our longstanding point of view on capital deployment. First, we invest what we believe is remove in our core business. Second, we support the dividend which weve grown annually for more than four decades. And third, we use share buy back to return cash within the limits of our middle A debt rating. We believe a middle A rating is strategicalally important as it supports our ability to reliably deliver on our unbeatable pricing scheme over time. In addition, our balance sheet provides the flexibility to maintain our long-term focus in the face of unexpected events like the data breach enable investment and strategic initiatives like flexible fulfillment while we deal with a temporary setback in traffic to sales al ong with other costs related to the breach. In addition to operating results in the U.S. and Canada, our fourth quarter GAAP earnings reflects several items that reduced EPS by approximately $0.09. These items include charges related to our January restructuring, data breach related costs net of an insurance receivable and continued reduction in a secure interest asset partially offset by a small benefit from a resolution of income tax matters.Combining fourth quarter results with performance in the first nine months of 2013 yields full year results that reflect the impact of clear successes and certain challenges. In ourU.S. segment, full year comparable sales declined 0.4% well below our expectations going into the year. This reflects the tougher than expected consumer environment including the impact on the payroll tax increase which just annualized last month, the fourth quarter impact of the data breach and recent headwinds from unfavorable weather, as youve heard from many ot her retailers. On our U.S. sales, we earned a gross margin rate of 29.8% in 2013, up about 10 basis points from 2012. This rate reflects about 20 basis points of benefit from this years change in vendor payments combined with very strong underlying margin performance in the face of softer than expected sales. Throughout the year, Kathys team did a great job managing inventory resulting in outstanding in-stock levels while avoiding unnecessary clearance markdowns. Our full year SGA expense rate in the U.S. was 20%, up about 90 basis points from last years revised rate.Contrary to what you readiness initially think, this reflects outstanding performance in light of softer than expected sales and some notable challenges representing more than $600 million of incremental pressure. Including credit card portfolio income, which as you know reduces our SGA rate, about $400 million lower than 2012 reflecting profit sharing with TD, prior year reserve reductions and a smaller asset base thi s year. And more than $200 million of expense pressure from incremental investments in technology and supply chain to support our multichannel efforts. Without these impacts, our SGA expense rate would have been slightly higher than 2012 but would have been neutral without this years change in vendor payments. This is better expense performance than wed expect on a decline in comparable sales and was driven primarily by two factors outstanding performance by our stores organization which continued to provide outstanding guest service while delivering productivity increases and our company-wide expense optimization efforts through which our teams are finding better ways to work while deprioritizing less productive activities.As Gregg mentioned, the team continues to find new opportunities to optimize expenses and we expect to reach $1 billion in annualized savings by 2015 helping to fund our efforts to drive profitable growth over the next several years. For full year 2013, U.S. REDc ard penetration grew nearly 6 percentage points to 19.3% of sales as more and more guests increased their level of engagement and their spending with Target. Penetration in Kansas City where we began offeringREDcard awards a year ahead of the rest of the country continued to run well ahead of the U.S. overall. Importantly, as part of our broader effort to rebuild traffic and sales in 2014 we will work to reaccelerate REDcard growth in light of the recent slowdown in growth weve seen following the data breach. In Canada in 2013 we generated just over $1.3 billion in sales on 124 stores which were opened on average for a little more than half the year. These sales were well below our plan going into the year leading to greater than expected markdowns on a meaningful amount of excess inventory Expense rate were unusually high as well as a result of opening early cycle stores with too many payroll hours, incurring incremental expense relating to clearing inventory and experiencing less leverage on fixed expenses.In the face of these challenges, the team worked tirelessly to improve operations and work through excess inventory throughout the year, clearing the way for an acceleration of sales and profitability beginning this year. Our early cycle store continued to outperform later cycle stores giving is confidence that our operations will continue to become more streamlined as our business matures. And having dramatically reduced the congestion in our Canadian supply chain, we will increase the intensity of our marketing message in 2014 regarding value and assortment in our frequency categories. Over time we expect this will lead our Canadian guests to choose Target more often in these categories, driving meaningful increases in traffic and sales. Turning to capital deployment, our total capital investment was about $3.5 billion in 2013, somewhat lower than expected as U.S CapEx of about $1.9 billion was approximately $300 million lower than anticipated.This outc ome doesnt reflect a change in strategy, but is simply the result of a lower than expected cost for certain projects and retiming of suspending into 2014. Having sold our credit card portfolio, for about $5.7 billion in March, we significantly reduced our net debt position in 2013, including the early retirement of Haikupon debt. And importantly even in a year of peak CapEx and dilution relating to the Canadian segment combined with the impact of softer than expected U.S sales, we still have the capacity to return about $2.5 billion to our shareholders in the form of dividends and share buy. With that as context, lets turn now to our outlook for 2014. But before we get to the numbers, I want to discuss a change in our reporting and guidance practices in 2014. Given that our Canadian segment isnow fully operating, beginning with the first quarter of 2014 we will no longer exclude Canadian segment performance from adjusted EPS. To allow for appropriate comparison, last years adjusted EPS will also reflect Canadian segment performance as well. With that, lets turn to our full-year outlook beginning with sales.While trends have improved in recent weeks, surd winter weather has been a headwind and we continue to see the impact of the data breach on guest sentiment and traffic. We believe that we will continue to see muted trends in the next few months, but the breach impact will diminish throughout the year as we engage in a vigorous effort to address our guests concerns and provide irresistible content offers driving business to our stores and digital channels. In addition, while economic trends are improving, we continue to expect our lower and middle income guests to shop very cautiously in 2014. With that backdrop, our current view is that U.S comparable sales will grow in the range of 0% to 2% in 2014. On those sales we expect a U.S segment EBITDA rate of 10.1% to 10.3%, meaning EBITDA dollar should grow between 5% and 8% this year. Among the drivers of EBIT DA margin, we expect gross margin will improve 30 or 40 basis points from our 2013 rate of 29.8%, reflecting improved clearance markdown rates and more significantly the gross margin benefit of our expense optimization efforts.These benefits will be partially offset by the impact of additional promotional activities and continued investment in 5% REDcard rewards. We expect the U.S segment SGA expense rate slightly better than last years 20% rate, reflecting continued discipline expense control and the benefit of our expense optimization efforts offset by our continued investments in distribution and technology in support of our multi-channel efforts. We expect these (indiscernible) investments to be worth $0.05 to $0.10 of incremental EPS pressure in 2014. In Canada, we expect total sales will be approximately double our 2013 experience. As we annualize last years124 openings and begin generating comparable sales growth in mature stores. On those sales we expect to earn a much highe r gross margin rate in a range approaching 30%. But clearly we continue to see some near-term volatility until the Until the Canadian business matures. While we expect to see better fixed expense leverage in 2014, the SGA rate will likely remain well above our long-term outlook in a range approaching 40%.Altogether, this will lead to a Canadian segment EBITDA margin rate of minus 8% to minus 10%,representing more than $400 million of expected EBITDA improvement from 2013. We expect U.S capital expenditures of $2.1 billion $2.3 billion, up slightly from actual 2013 spending. The mix of U.S CapEx will continue to tilt from investments in new stores towards supply chain and technology as we accelerate our multi-channel efforts and continue to find a limited number of new store sites that meet our strategic and financial criteria. I should also note that U.S CapEx reflects incremental investments related to our recent decision to accelerate deployment of chip enabled card readers to al l of our U.S stores before the end of the year. In Canada we expect 2014 capital expenditures in the $300 million to $400 million range, down more than $1 billion from peak spending in 2013. We expect once again to raise our annual dividend in the neighborhood of 20% this year, which will mark our 43rd consecutive annual increase. And even with a restrained outlook for near-term traffic and sales and understanding there will be further costs relating to the data breach, our current outlook envision share repurchase capacity of $1 billion to $2 billion in 2014, beginning later in the year as our business stabilizes and we have more limpidity on potential breach related costs.Altogether, these expectations would lead to full-year adjusted EPS representing results from operations in the U.S and Canada of $3.85 to $4.15. This estimate excludes approximately $0.07 of dilution related to the continued reduction in the beneficial interest asset. These 2014 expectations represent an improv ement of more than 20% from combined U.S and Canadian segment results in 2013. Please note that our full-year outlook does not include potential additional costs relating to the data breach beyond what we already recorded in the fourth quarter, as theyre not estimable at this time. While I realize this may result in a wide range of speculation on the magnitude of these costs, given that our investigation of breach is ongoing it would not be appropriate to say anything more about it than we already have this morning. Regardless of the ultimate dollar amounts, as Greg mentioned, we have the financial strength to move beyond these near-term impacts while we continue to invest in the future. And as always, we are focused on whats most important, addressing the concerns of our guests and helping them to feel confident shopping with us. Now lets briefly turn to our first quarter outlook.In the U.S we expect first quarter comparable sales in the range of flat to down 2%. So far in February comparable sales have been running within that range, ahead of our forecast and nearly flat to last year. And I should note while growth isnt running where it had been earlier in 2013, REDcard penetration so far in February has been running 100s of basis points ahead of last year. On our first quarter U.S sales, we expect an EBITDA margin rate of 9.7% to 9.9%. In Canada, we expect to generate first quarter sales in a range of $400 million to $450 million with EBITDA of minus $150 million to minus $170 million. In light of this near-term operating outlook, we dont expect to have the capacity to repurchase shares in the first quarter, but we expect to resume this activity later in the year.Altogether, our expectations would lead to first quarter adjusted EPS reflecting operating results in the U.S and Canada in the range of $0.60 to $0.75, excluding $0.02 relating to the reduction in the beneficial interest asset and any potential costs related to the data breach. While this has been a challenging year, we are proud of the work of our team and we believe we have the right plans in place to generate meaningfully improved performance in 2014. As we focus on making Target irresistible for our guests, both today and over time, we believe we will go profitably for many years to come. With that, well cease todays prepared remarks. Now Greg, Kathy and I will be happy to respond to your questions. uestion-and-Answer Session