While revenues are lower, we continue to be pleased with the progress we are making on our repositioning and restructuring initiatives, ... In particular, our focus on gross margins and productivity improvements continue to contribute to improved profitability.

We're acquiring a great brand, [and] introducing it into our stores will attract new shoppers...who will connect with our apparel departments better than they would have in the past,

Clearly business is slowing down. Everybody is cutting back a bit, but our focus has been to structurally change how we do business because how we do business is not working,

We probably are going to become a little bit less of a department store, with less emphasis on apparel, ... I think the exit from cosmetics is an example of this. We are very much in the process of reworking our business model and how we go to market and how we spend money.

Given the slowing economic environment, 2001 will be a challenging year, particularly in the first half, ... We are very focused on delivering solid profit growth for the year...Income growth combined with our share repurchase program should allow us to achieve high single- to low double-digit earnings per share growth.

On a stand-alone basis, Sears Canada's retail business faces an increasingly competitive retail environment in Canada, and the principal factor that will determine the value of this business is the prospects for its retail operations.