Welcome to Bed Bath & Beyond's Second Quarter of Fiscal 2012 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Today's conference is being recorded. A rebroadcast of the conference call will be available beginning on Wednesday, September 19, 2012, at 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time through 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Friday, September 21, 2012. To access the rebroadcast, you may dial 1 (888) 203-1112 with the passcode ID of 6602434. And at this time, it's my pleasure to turn the conference over to Gene Castagna of Bed Bath & Beyond. Please go ahead.

Thank you and good afternoon. Welcome to Bed Bath & Beyond's Second Quarter of fiscal 2012 Conference Call. A short time ago, we issued a press release announcing Bed Bath & Beyond's results for the 3- and 6-month period ended August 25, 2012. During this call, we will comment on some of the second quarter highlights and provide an update of our model through the end of the fiscal year. We will also provide some additional information related to the recent acquisitions of Cost Plus, Inc. and Linen Holdings, LLC. Before proceeding, I will read the following statement and I quote, "Bed Bath & Beyond's fiscal second quarter press release and comments made during this call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities & Exchange Act of 1934 as amended. Many of these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as may, will, expect, anticipate, approximate, estimate, assume, continue, model, project, plan and similar words and phrases. The company's actual results and future financial condition may differ materially from those expressed in any such forward-looking statements as a result of many factors. Please refer to Bed Bath & Beyond's SEC filings, including its Form 10-K for the year ended February 25, 2012. The company does not undertake any obligation to update its forward-looking statements. Joining me on today's call are Warren Eisenberg, Co-Chairman of Bed Bath & Beyond; and Steven Temares, Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors. I'm now very pleased to introduce Warren Eisenberg. Warren?

Thanks, Gene, and good afternoon. We are pleased to report our company's fiscal second quarter net earnings per diluted share of $0.98, which, after accounting for the World Market and Linen Holdings acquisition, was at the high end of our model. As previously announced, we are excited that during the quarter, we completed the acquisition of both Cost Plus, Inc. and Linen Holdings, LLC. Cost Plus, Inc., which we will refer to as World Market, is a retailer with 258 stores in 30 states at the time of the acquisition, operating under the names of World Market, Cost Plus World Market and World Market Stores that sell a wide range of home decorating items, furniture, gifts, holiday and other seasonal items and specialty food and beverages. Linen Holdings is a business-to-business distributor of a variety of textile products, amenities and other goods. And we're looking forward to the opportunities provided by these acquisitions to do more for and with our collective customers. In a few minutes, Steve and Gene will provide some additional information regarding these transactions. In addition to these transactions, other second quarter activities included the opening of 5 Bed Bath & Beyond stores, 3 buybuy BABY stores, 2 Harmon Face Values store and 1 Christmas Tree Shops store. We also continued to relocate and renovate stores throughout the company. At August 25, 2012, consolidated store space, including the 258 World Market Stores, was approximately 41.4 million square feet, an increase of approximately 16.3% over the end of last year's second quarter. Since the beginning of the fiscal first quarter of 2012, we have opened 3 World Market Stores, our first opening since the acquisition was completed, and 1 additional buybuy BABY store. Including these stores, we currently operate 1,453 stores, consisting of 1,000 Bed Bath & Beyond…

Thank you, Warren. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for participating in this conference call. Before reviewing our fiscal second quarter results that have been reported within the last hour, I'd like to again welcome the associates, customers and vendors of World Market and Linen Holdings to Bed Bath & Beyond's growing family. The prospects offered by our newly added, dedicated and talented people are extremely exciting to our organization and as Warren mentioned, we look forward to the opportunities that, in combination with all our concepts, gives us to do more for and with our collective customers. We're also excited about the completion of the relocation of our offices in Farmingdale and Garden City, New York to our corporate headquarters in Union, New Jersey. As a result of this relocation, we expect to further improve the communication, coordination and execution across all our concepts, activities and platforms to enhance the continuing growth of our company. Offering a broad and deep assortment of merchandise at everyday low prices with superior customer service remains at the core of our identity. At the same time, we remain focused on increasing the productivity of our existing stores and enhancing our customer experience by expanding our product offerings to both new and existing customers; expanding, renovating and/or relocating stores; growing our bridal, baby and gift registries; and continuing the development of our interactive platforms. We continue to invest in all aspects of our company to enhance our customer's overall experience in store, online and through mobile devices and social media, and remain committed to being our customers' first choice for the merchandise categories we offer domestically, interactively and over the longer term, internationally. We are confident that our company is well positioned to grow profitably and increase market share and shareholder value over time.…

Thanks, Steve. As Warren said, we are pleased with the $0.98 per diluted share that we earned during the fiscal second quarter, which, after accounting for the World Market and Linen Holdings acquisitions, was at the high end of our model. While we are encouraged by our positive fiscal second quarter results, we continue to be cautiously optimistic about the remainder of the coming year. The following are the planning assumptions for the remainder of fiscal 2012, which consists of 53 weeks and includes World Market and Linen Holdings from the date of each acquisition to the end of the fiscal year. One, as Warren said, including the 22 stores opened to date and including several anticipated World Market openings, we have modeled opening approximately 45 stores across all of our concepts. We believe that fiscal 2012's mix of store openings by concept, excluding World Market, will be relatively comparable to that of fiscal 2011. As the year progresses, the total number of stores that we will open will be updated as we gain greater visibility. Two, we expect to continue our program of relocating, renovating, and expanding a number of our stores in fiscal 2012. Three, capital expenditures for fiscal 2012, including World Market and Linen Holdings, are now planned to be in the range of $300 million to $350 million, which, of course, remains subject to the timing and composition of projects, including new stores and existing store refurbishments, Information Technology enhancements and other projects important to our future, including the following major initiatives: The development of an enhanced website experience for our customers; the opening of a new 800,000 square foot E-Commerce Fulfillment Center in Pendergrass, Georgia; the relocation of our Farmingdale and Garden City, New York offices to our corporate headquarters in Union, New Jersey, for…

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for listening. You may now disconnect.