Welcome to Bed Bath & Beyond's Fiscal 2012 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] A rebroadcast of the conference will be available beginning on Wednesday, April 10, 2013, at 6:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time through 6:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Friday, April 12, 2013. To access the rebroadcast, you may dial 1 (888) 203-1112, with a passcode ID of 5006344. And at this time, it is my pleasure to turn the conference over to Mr. Gene Castagna, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of Bed Bath & Beyond. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good afternoon. Welcome to Bed Bath & Beyond's Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2012 Conference Call. A short time ago, we issued a press release announcing Bed Bath & Beyond's results for the 3- and 12-month periods ended March 2, 2013. During this call, we will comment on some of the fourth quarter and full year highlights and provide our fiscal 2013 planning assumptions. Before proceeding, I will read the following statement, and I quote, "Bed Bath & Beyond's fiscal fourth quarter press release and comments made during this call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities and 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. I'm pleased to report that our company's net earnings per diluted share increased approximately 14% for the fourth quarter to $1.68, and approximately 12% for the full year to $4.56. As a reminder, fiscal 2012 was a 53-week year, and as such, the fourth quarter of fiscal 2012 consisted of 14 weeks versus 13 weeks in fiscal 2011. These results continue our consistent performance in terms of earnings per share growth, cash flow generation and overall financial strength. During this quarter, we continued the integration of World Market and Linen Holdings and made substantial progress on our initiatives to enhance our website, ramp up our Pendergrass, Georgia E-Commerce Fulfillment operation, complete the remaining construction and other follow-up items related to the relocation of our Farmingdale and Garden City, New York offices to our corporate headquarters in Union, New Jersey and advance the development of a new IT data center, which is located in Claremont, North Carolina. Also during the fourth quarter, we opened one Bed Bath & Beyond store and 4 buybuy BABY stores and completed the relocation and renovation of selected stores across our concepts. At March 2, 2013, consolidated store space, including the 264 World Market Stores, was approximately 42 million square feet, an increase of approximately 16% over the end of last year's fourth quarter. Since the beginning of the fiscal quarter of 2013, we've opened 2 additional Bed Bath & Beyond stores and 1 additional buybuy BABY store. Including those store openings, we currently operate 1,474 stores, consisting of 1,006 Bed Bath & Beyond stores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Canada; 264 World Market stores; 83 buybuy BABY stores; 74 stores under the names Christmas Tree Shops or andThat!; and 47 stores under the names…

Thank you, Warren. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for participating in this conference call. As Warren said, we are pleased that we've been able to continue our consistent performance in terms of earnings per share growth, cash flow generation and overall financial strength. For this, we thank our dedicated and talented associates and their focus on improving our customers' overall shopping experience, which are the keys to producing these results. On an ongoing basis, we continue to increase and differentiate our merchandise assortments to better serve our customers' needs and shopping preferences. We also continue to invest in all aspects of our company to enhance the experience in store, online and through mobile devices and social media, and we remain committed to being our customers' first choice for the merchandise categories we offer domestically, interactively and, over the longer term, internationally. By offering a broad, deep and differentiated assortment of merchandise at everyday low prices with superior customer service, we are confident that our company is well positioned to grow profitably and increase market share and shareholder value over time. Looking back on 2012, we are pleased with the progress we have made in many areas. To mention a few, we completed the relocation of our buying offices from New York to our headquarters in Union, New Jersey. Although we are still working on some remaining construction items, we believe the benefits of the enhanced communication, coordination and execution across all our concepts will even exceed our expectations. We completed 2 acquisitions, which were both accretive during fiscal 2012 and are expected to enhance shareholder value over time. The integrations of both World Market and Linen Holdings are going well, in no small part due to the terrific management teams both companies possess, and we are very happy with…

Thanks, Steve. I would like to begin by bringing to your attention several items which affect the comparability of our just-completed fiscal 2012 and our upcoming fiscal 2013. First of all, fiscal 2013 is a 52-week year. Since fiscal 2012 was a 53-week year, the approximate $0.05 that we earned in the 53rd week will not be repeated in fiscal 2013. Second, during fiscal 2012, we recorded a tax benefit of approximately $26.7 million or approximately $0.12 per diluted share in favorable discrete tax adjustments, particularly in the fiscal first quarter of 2012 when we reported an approximate $14.6 million favorable tax adjustment or approximately $0.06 per diluted share. Since these benefits were onetime in nature and fiscal 2013 adjustments are uncertain, we are anticipating the tax rate to be 400 to 500 basis points higher in the first quarter of 2013 as compared to the first quarter of 2012. For the full year, we expect the fiscal 2013 tax rate to be incrementally higher than the tax rate for last year's full year. Third, the inclusion of the results of World Market and Linen Holdings will not be comparable until after we anniversary the acquisitions during the fiscal second quarter of 2013. Finally, we have 2 calendar changes which will affect the comparability of our sales results. First is the shift in our fiscal calendar caused by the 53rd week; second is the timing of Thanksgiving relative to Christmas in fiscal 2013. These effects on comparability will be most evident in the third and fourth quarters of fiscal 2013. That said, I would now like to provide our remaining major planning assumptions for fiscal 2013. One, including the 3 stores opened to date, we currently anticipate opening approximately 45 stores across all our concepts, with the possibility of some…

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