“We expect net interest expense of approximately $1.8 billion, and our diluted earnings per share percent growth is targeted to be approximately 1% compared to fiscal 2023.”

In context

“our guidance for fiscal 2024. Today, we are reaffirming our guidance for 2024. As a reminder, our guidance does not currently reflect any impact from the announced acquisition of SRS. The acquisition is currently under regulatory review and we expect it to close by the end of fiscal 2024. We expect total sales growth to outpace sales comp with sales growth of approximately positive 1% and comp sales of approximately negative 1%. Total sales growth will benefit from a 53rd week and we expect the 53rd week will contribute approximately $2.3 billion in sales. Our gross margin is expected to be approximately 33.9%, an increase of approximately 50 basis points, compared to fiscal 2023. We expect operating margin of approximately 14.1%. Our effective tax rate is targeted at approximately 24.5%. We expect net interest expense of approximately $1.8 billion, and our diluted earnings per share percent growth is targeted to be approximately 1% compared to fiscal 2023. It’s our intent to update guidance as appropriate once the SRS transaction closes. We believe that we have positioned ourselves to meet the needs of our customers in any environment. The investments we’ve made in our business have enabled agility in our operating model. As we look forward, we will continue to invest to strengthen our position with our customers, leverage our scale and low-cost position to drive growth faster than the market and deliver shareholder value. Thank you for your participation in today’s call. And Christine, we are now ready for questions. Operator: Thank you. We’ll now be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Chris Horvers with JPMorgan. Please proceed with your question. Chris Hor”