Welcome to Bed Bath & Beyond's Second Quarter of Fiscal 2013 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] This conference is being recorded. A rebroadcast of the conference call will be available beginning on Wednesday, September 25, 2013, at 6:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time through 6:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Friday, September 27, 2013. To access the rebroadcast, you may dial (888) 843-7419 with the passcode ID of 35678746. At this time, it's my pleasure to turn the conference over to Mr. Gene Castagna, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of Bed Bath & Beyond. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, and good afternoon. Welcome to Bed Bath & Beyond's Second Quarter of Fiscal 2013 Conference Call. A short time ago, we issued a press release announcing Bed Bath & Beyond's results for the 3- and 6-month periods ended August 31, 2013. During this call, we will comment on some of the second quarter highlights and update our fiscal third quarter and 2013 fiscal year planning assumptions. 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 position 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 March 2, 2013. 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. Thanks, Gene, and good afternoon. We're pleased to report that our company's net earnings per diluted share increased approximately 18.4% in the fiscal second quarter to $1.16. These results continue our consistent performance in terms of earnings per share growth and overall financial strength. During the quarter, we launched new websites for Bed Bath & Beyond and buybuy BABY, as well as continued the integration of World Market and Linen Holdings, and made good progress on the other major initiatives that we mentioned last quarter. Steve will discuss these items in a few minutes. Our other second quarter activities included the opening of 1 Bed Bath & Beyond store, 1 Christmas Tree Shops store, 3 buybuy BABY stores and 1 Harmon Face Values store. Additionally, we continue to relocate and renovate stores across our concepts. At August 31, 2013, consolidated store space included the 266 World Market stores and net openings and closings for all our concepts was approximately 42.3 million square feet, an increase of approximately 2.2% over the end of last year's second quarter. Since the beginning of the fiscal third quarter of 2013, we've opened 2 Bed Bath & Beyond stores and 1 World Market store. Including these stores, we currently operate 1,487 stores, consisting of 1,011 Bed Bath & Beyond stores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Canada; 267 stores under the names World Market, Cost Plus World Market or Cost Plus; 86 buybuy BABY stores; 74 stores under a combination of the names Christmas Tree Shops or andThat!; and 49 stores under the names Harmon or Harmon Face Values. Including the 17 additional stores we've opened so far, we continue to plan the number of store openings across all our concepts in fiscal '13 to be in the mid-30s.…

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 and overall financial strength, as we -- excuse me, as well as with the integrations of both World Market and Linen Holdings. We are grateful for the dedication and talent of all our associates and our constant focus on improving the overall customer experience, while at the same time, creating a more productive and efficient company which are the keys to producing the strong results that we have experienced. On an ongoing basis, we continue to increase and differentiate our merchandise assortment to better serve our customers' needs and shopping preferences. We also continue to invest in all aspects of our company and work to enhance our customers' overall 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 with superior customer service, we are confident that our company is well-positioned to grow profitably and increase our market share and shareholder value over time. As we said in our last quarter's conference call, this fiscal year, we are advancing several major initiatives which will require incremental capital investment, SG&A expense, including enhancing our omnichannel experience for our customers. During the quarter, we replaced both back end and customer facing systems for our buybuy BABY and Bed Bath & Beyond websites. Our new websites provide the foundation for ongoing improvements in this area. Also this year, we will continue to upgrade our mobile sites and apps, enhance network communications in…

Thanks, Steve. As you heard from Warren and Steve, we earned $1.16 per diluted share in our fiscal second quarter. We are encouraged by our positive fiscal second quarter results, and we continue to be cautiously optimistic about the remainder of the year. As noted in our prior quarter's call, I would like to remind everyone of the following 3 items: First, I'm happy to announce the inclusion of World Market sales and earnings will be comparable beginning with the fiscal third quarter and for the remainder of the fiscal year. Second, since fiscal 2012 was a 53-week year, the net sales generated of approximately $184 million during the extra week in the fourth quarter last year and the related 5 -- the related approximate $0.05 earnings per share will not be repeated in the fiscal fourth quarter of 2013. And third, as we discussed on our last call, and which I will review in a moment, we have several items which make modeling sales in the third and fourth quarters more challenging than usual for the back half of the year. Although we believe the comp and net sales ranges we are providing to be reasonable, our estimates for the third and fourth quarters may be subject to higher volatility due to our reliance on several assumptions about how sales will be affected by the calendar shift and our promotional changes. As we discuss sales for the remainder of the year, please refer to the chart included in our fiscal first quarter of 2013 10-Q. That highlights the differences and the date ranges between the fiscal and the comparable store sales calendars on a quarter-by-quarter basis due to a shift caused by our 53rd week last year. Keeping these calendar differences in mind, our sales model for the remainder…

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