Welcome to Bed Bath & Beyond's Second Quarter of Fiscal 2014 Results Conference Call. All participants are in a listen-only mode for the duration of the call. This conference is being recorded. A rebroadcast of the conference call will be available beginning on Tuesday September 23, 2014 at 6:30 pm Eastern Time through 6:30 pm Eastern Time on Thursday September 25, 2014. [Operator instructions]. At this time, it’s my pleasure to turn the conference over to Ms. Sue Lattmann, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of Bed Bath & Beyond. Please go ahead.

Hello everyone and thank you for participating in today’s earnings call. I am joined by Warren Eisenberg, Co-Chairman of Bed Bath & Beyond's, and Steven Temares, Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that this conference call may contain forward-looking statements including statements about or references to our internal models and our long-term objectives. All such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from what we say here today. Please refer to our most recent periodic SEC reports for more detail on these risks and uncertainties. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements as events or circumstances may change after this call. With that said, I will now turn the call over to Warren Eisenberg. Warren?

Thank you, Sue, and good afternoon everyone. Since Len Feinstein and I founded our company over 43 years ago, the mission has remained the same; just take care of the customer. Today more than ever, taking care of the customer means being available wherever and whenever our customer wants to interact with us. We built our company to be flexible and ready to change to meet the evolving needs of our customers and to face the challenges of a competitive and dynamic retail environment. And while much has changed in the past 43 years, change itself has been a constant as well as our ability to respond successfully to it, and we are prudent to be ahead of it. How we have met this challenge is to hold true to our philosophy of providing great service and great selection at the right value. Through the growing breadth of our assortment of merchandise as well as our rapidly expanding omni-channel presence, we are able to interact with our customers throughout their various life stages, some of which might include summer camp, college, first apartment, wedding registry, first home, baby registry, next home, and to begin part of all the cycles again. This ability creates a powerful customer value proposition and a loyal consumer base which forges an enduring seamless relationship with our customers. Building and maintaining this type of relationship in an evolving retail landscape requires a significant investment in technology to engage our customers where and how they prefer in-store, online, through a mobile device, or in any combination of these methods, and it also requires the smart use of the data that our technology enables us to assemble. At the same time beneath all of this are our original core principles, take care of the customer and never be…

Thank you Warren. Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us today. First of all, I would like to take this opportunity to express how pleased we are to have completed initial offering of $1.5 billion of senior unsecured notes implemented a $250 million revolving credit agreement, received approval from our Board of Directors for an additional $2 billion share repurchase program, and entered into a $1.1 billion accelerated share repurchase agreement. At the same time, we are pleased that Standard & Poor’s has raised our credit ratings to single A-minus from Triple B+, which speaks to the strength of our company and our future prospects. We believe that this was the appropriate time to enter into these transactions to enhance shareholder value, while maintaining our financial flexibility. As we have always said, we continue to review our capital structure on an ongoing basis. Looking at the detail of our fiscal second-quarter performance, we reported net earnings per diluted share of $1.17 compared to $1.16 per diluted share in last year’s fiscal second-quarter. Net sales for the fiscal second-quarter were approximately $2.9 billion, approximately 4.3% higher than in the prior year net sales of approximately $2.8 billion. Of this increase, approximately 78% is attributable to the increase in comp sales and approximately 22% is primarily from new stores offset by a decrease in shipping income. Second-quarter comparable sales increased by approximately 3.4% compared with an increase of 3.7% last year. This comparable sales increase is attributed to increases in both the average transaction amount and the number of transactions. Our comparable sales metrics consider sales consummated through all retail channels in-store, online, and through a mobile device. Customers today may take advantage of our omni-channel environment by using more than one channel when making a purchase. We believe an…

Thank you Steve. As Steven mentioned, we completed our initial debt offering and implemented a revolving credit agreement during our second quarter. I would like to start by thanking all those who participated in this process, and welcome the new holders of the notes to the call. With regard to our second-quarter, I would like to give a few additional details. Primary as a result of the notes offering net interest expense for the second quarter was approximately $9.5 million. Our provision for income taxes for the fiscal second quarter was approximately 37.7% compared to approximately 35.8% for the comparable quarter last year, an increase of approximately 190 basis points. The provision for the quarter, including net after-tax benefits of approximately $800,000 this year and $9.7 million last year due to distinct tax events occurring during the quarters. Our provision for income taxes continues to fluctuate as taxable events occur and exposures are reevaluated. Turning to the balance sheet, during the second-quarter we received $1.5 billion from the notes offering of which $1.1 billion was subsequently used to fund our accelerated share repurchase program, which commenced during the second-quarter, and is expected to be completed before the end of the calendar year. In addition, the uses of cash included capital expenditures and other investments. We ended the second-quarter, with cash and cash equivalents and investment securities of approximately $1.4 billion. As of August 30, 2014, retailer inventories at cost were approximately $2.7 billion or $63.39 per square foot, an increase of approximately 5% on a per square foot basis over the end of last year’s second-quarter. Retail inventory is continue to be tailored to meet the anticipated demands of our customers and are in good condition. Capital expenditures for the first half of 2014 were approximately $156 million; slightly more…

Ladies and Gentlemen: this concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating, you may now disconnect. [No Q&A for this event].