Kevin left the company at my request because I lost confidence in his personal credibility, ... His departure is not related to business performance and does not constitute a change in credit strategy.
Our credit business contributed very strong growth in operating income, ... We are pleased with the quality of our credit portfolio and our ongoing productivity improvements.
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.
We are moving away from a traditional department store business model. That has to change,
As work on improving the performance of full-line stores progresses, it has become clear that a broad cosmetics business no longer fits with our financial and strategic objectives for Sears full-line stores,
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.
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,
The Great Indoors is a viable, important format that has always resonated with customers. The business continues to hold great promise.