To our shareholders, And grow some more… Watch us grow… And grow… In the year 2001, The Children’s Place continued its steadfast aggressive expansion towards becoming the #1 children’s apparel specialty retailer in the United States.  We celebrated the opening of our 500th store in October. We opened 121 new stores across the country, with the largest number of new stores in California, bringing our store total to 520 at year-end. Strong performance across all demographics and in all retail venues yielded a 63% return on investment for our class of 2000 stores for which 2001 was their first full fiscal year. This high return on investment coupled with the broad consumer appeal of our brand, are key factors to our successful expansion strategy and reinforces our confidence that we can grow The Children’s Place concept to 1,000 stores by the end of 2005. Our Company posted record sales and record earnings in 2001, despite experiencing negative comparable store sales. Total sales increased 12% to $657.0 million and net income increased by 9% to $46.6 million, resulting in record diluted earnings per share of $1.73. This performance was achieved primarily due to our improved gross margin as a result of lower product cost. We are excited about bringing our successful fashionable brand of high quality value-priced merchandise to the Canadian consumer and establishing a strong position across our northern border with our entry into the Canadian market, through the acquisition of 23 children’s apparel stores. By August 2002 we will convert these stores to sell our proprietary “The Children’s Place” brand throughout Ontario and Quebec. This acquisition gives The Children’s Place the foundation to expand up to 125 stores in the Canadian market. We remain committed to growth and continue to look at additional expansion opportunities in national and international markets that complement our growth strategy. We have also identified an internal growth opportunity to increase our total selling square footage by expanding our Children’s PLACE /babyPLACE combo stores. We are extremely excited about this new larger store concept, which allows us to showcase a broader merchandise assortment, add new product classifications and enhance our overall image to our customers. This expansion is being introduced into additional high volume locations to generate increased store sales and profitability. We look forward with confidence to the year 2002. All of our efforts are well underway to manage our strong anticipated earnings growth. Our infrastructure is in place with distribution centers on both coasts. Our office facilities in Hong Kong and China are in place. Our information systems have been upgraded. And, with our coordinated, well designed and fashion right merchandise at an appealing price point, we are very excited about the future.  We will continue executing and maximizing our highly successful formula as we develop The Children’s Place into the #1 children’s apparel specialty retailer in the United States and Canada. We could not accomplish our goals without the hard work, care and dedication we receive from our associates. We thank all our associates and shareholders for your continued confidence and support in our Company. Our aggressive and profitable growth strategy continues. In May 2001, we commenced operation in our new state-of-the-art West Coast Distribution Center, marking an important step towards building our infrastructure to support our goal of operating more than 1,000 stores. Our proprietary Children’s PLACE credit card and customer database continue to grow and are a vital part of our loyalty and branding strategy. We plan to open 130 stores in fiscal 2002, ending the year with approximately 650 stores.  Ezra Dabah Chairman and Chief Executive Officer