You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: These uncertainties are detailed in documents filed regularly with the SEC.
We use adjusted constant dollar amounts as lead numbers in our discussion because we believe they more accurately represent the true operational performance and underlying results of our business.
You may also hear us refer to reported amounts which are in accordance with U.S. GAAP.
During the fourth quarter of 2020, the Company determined that the Occupational Workwear business met the held-for-sale and discontinued operations accounting criteria.
Accordingly, the Company has reported the related assets and liabilities of the Occupational Workwear business in discontinued operations as of the date noted above and included the operating results of this business in discontinued operations for all periods presented.
As always, I hope our comments today find you and your loved ones healthy and safe.
As we conclude our fiscal '21 year, I'm proud of the way both VF and our people navigated what turned out to be one of the most disruptive years in our Company's 122-year history.
We didn't know how the pandemic would unfold and we didn't know how long it would last.
But we did know one thing, we were determined not just to survive the situation, but to capitalize on the moment, emerge even stronger, and position VF and our brands for the next chapter of growth and value creation.
Combined with our early actions to preserve liquidity and protect our balance sheet, today I can say with confidence that VF is indeed emerging from this crisis as a stronger, smarter, and more focused enterprise.
Throughout fiscal '21, our teams remain sharply focused on executing their plans and we continue to invest in our brand's greatest opportunities to drive growth.
As you all know, our organic portfolio had strong momentum heading into this crisis, delivering 9% revenue and 19% earnings growth through the first nine months of fiscal '20.
All of the actions we've taken throughout fiscal '21 have been squarely focused on regaining the strong organic momentum as we exit the pandemic.
We also remained focused on driving inorganic growth by evolving our portfolio to align with near and long-term market opportunities.
This is exactly what we did by acquiring Supreme in late 2020 which we believe will deliver significant value creation for VF shareholders in the years to come.
In addition, we announced late last month that we've entered into a definitive agreement to sell our Occupational Workwear businesses.
The sale of this business will provide greater financial flexibility to fuel the long-term strategic growth initiatives for our remaining portfolio.
The continued effects of the pandemic forced an ongoing reaffirmation of our priorities.
We've been actively working to accelerate our hyper digital journey in fiscal '21, with continued focus on a central consumer data platform that's accessible to our brands and that enables them to understand consumers more deeply and to engage them in more meaningful and personal ways, and we leveraged new technologies and processes to further digitize our go-to-market approach with advancements in 3D design and development, virtual product reviews and digital printing capabilities that shorten production calendars and accelerate our ability to flow newness and innovation.
We also kicked off project Enable, a multi-year initiative to evolve our organizational design to ensure we have the right capabilities, resources and talent in place to propel us forward.
This work includes up-skilling and reskilling parts of our workforce to equip them with the know-how to thrive in a digital first world.
The Project Enable will help us accelerate our business model transformation and reduce our global cost structure by about $125 million over three years.
Along with our focus on business performance and advancing our strategy, we have remained determined to continue building our reputation as a purpose-led company that leads by example.
We continue to activate our people first approach through fiscal '21.
We prioritized the health and safety of our people worldwide and went to great lengths to support their financial well-being.
I'm extremely proud to say that even during the darkest days of the crisis when nearly all our stores around the world were closed for months on end, not one of our retail associates was laid off or furloughed because of the pandemic.
We also continue to meet our commitments to the communities we serve and the planet we all share.
Last year was a year of tremendous progress in our efforts around the world to advance environmental sustainability.
We allocated the net proceeds from our EUR500 million green bond, the first in the apparel footwear industry, toward VF's eligible, sustainable projects worldwide.
Collectively, these projects are helping to deliver meaningful environmental benefits.
In addition, we announced our goal to eliminate all single-use plastic packaging, including poly bags by 2025.
Going forward, all remaining non-plastic packaging used by VF and our brands will originate from sustainable sources and be designed for reuse or recyclability.
We also published our first human rights report in alignment with the United Nations' guiding principles on business and human rights.
We're very proud of this work, and we aim to continuously improve as we uphold human rights in all our operations and across our global supply chain.
Beyond the global pandemic, other events of last year laid bare the pervasive racial and social economic injustices that plague our world, especially as they impact people of color.
In response, VF and our brands took action to build on our inclusion and diversity work by establishing the Council to Advance Racial Equity, CARE.
Although CARE is still young, we believe it will be a galvanizing force for our entire company as we take collective actions in the years ahead to fight for racial equity and social justice.
Operating as a purpose-led company is not just the right thing to do, it is what our employees and our consumers expect.
Brands are more than businesses which deliver product, they have the ability to influence positive movements within their communities.
This builds deeper connectivity and engagement between our brand and their consumers, supporting long-term profitable relationships.
We are a purpose-led and performance-driven organization.
Transitioning to our financial results, I want to start with a few highlights from this past year.
By any measure, the collective work of our associates to navigate fiscal '21 was nothing short of remarkable.
Despite unprecedented challenges from rolling virus surges and lockdowns globally, we were able to deliver global revenues of $9.2 billion and adjusted earnings per share of $1.31, in line with our outlook shared in January.
Throughout the year, Digital and China propelled our business forward.
Our D2C digital business delivered 55% organic growth.
And when combined with pure play digital wholesale, our total Digital business grew over 40% and accounted for nearly 30% of total revenue.
These figures demonstrate how quickly the world turned online and how well our teams adapted to the new reality with incredible speed and agility.
In fact, during the five-month period, our digital technology teams engineered home-grown solutions to enhance our e-commerce platform and stand up a new omnichannel capabilities, including buy-online-pickup-in-store, ship-from-store, and reserve-online-buy-in-store programs.
These new offerings further simplify the shopping experience for our consumers and enabled us to utilize retail inventory through our digital channels when stores were closed, all of which helped to generate around $50 million of incremental revenue this year.
Our China business also remained consistently strong throughout fiscal '21 growing 20% and surpassing $1 billion in revenue and exceeding our long-term plan targets.
We bolstered our China operations by appointing VF's first ever President of Greater China and we're in the process of restructuring our Asia Pacific operations by moving our brand's regional center from Hong Kong to Shanghai.
This will enable our brands to strengthen their in-country presence and gain even deeper insights into our Chinese consumers.
We have generated approximately $1 billion in free cash flow in fiscal '21, a testament to the resiliency of our portfolio and strong execution from our global teams.
While many of our peers were forced to pause their dividend commitments, our strong balance sheet and command over free cash flow supported our ability to modestly raise our dividend this year, returning $760 million to shareholders.
A key objective throughout this year was to exit fiscal '21 in a clean inventory position.
I'm pleased to say that we ended this year with owned inventories down 18% and our disciplined brand and marketplace management approach globally has resulted in clean inventory positions across channels.
Turning to our outlook.
Excluding Supreme, this represents high-single-digit organic revenue growth, above prior peak fiscal 2020 levels.
Said differently, we expect our Big Four brands to not only fully recover revenue lost during the pandemic, but delivers -- to deliver strong growth relative to prior peak levels.
Before getting into our fiscal '22 plan, I want to take a moment to address a specific question which always is top of minds with this audience, what gives me confidence in Van's ability to reaccelerate and deliver on its forward growth commitments?
Throughout the past year, the Vans conversation has been focused on the disruption caused by supply delays, the outsized impact of store closures, and the cumulative impact of inventory and marketing investment constraints.
As we have consistently discussed, these issues are all short term and episodic which have no impact on the long-term runway for this brand.
As we enter fiscal '22, there are several near-term catalysts which give me confidence in Vans' ability to regain momentum and return to the low-double digit growth path we laid out in 2019.
First, we know that the deep connectivity of Vans stores and associates are a distinct competitive advantage for the brand.
Our stores drive higher loyalty member enrollment, greater purchase frequency and higher average order value.
A return to in-store shopping will restore this advantage, growing the Vans community while driving a higher annual spend per consumer.
Second, a return to normal social usage occasions will accelerate purchases from depressed levels the brand experienced during the pandemic.
This is not just a return to in-person schooling for younger consumers.
This is a return to seeing family and friends, dining-out, attending concerts and sporting events and traveling.
We know Vans has remained top of mind for its core consumers who are ready to reengage with the brand as they return to a normal cadence of lifestyle activities.
And lastly, beginning next month, Vans will initiate a globally coordinated weekly drop cadence that marries both product and experiential demand creation to drive energy, excitement and brand heat.
A key learning from the past year has been the importance of flowing new product and associated storytelling to deepen engagement with existing consumers and attract new consumers to the brand.
This will be accompanied by an elevated vans.com experience to enhance the consumer journey around these exciting drops.
While Vans is our largest brand, I don't want to lose sight of the momentum we're seeing across the remainder of our portfolio.
As Matt will unpack shortly, our recovery this quarter and the strength of our fiscal '22 plan is broad based.
There is tremendous momentum at The North Face and Dickies, which we expect to accelerate.
We believe Timberland has reached an important inflection point and Supreme is off to a strong start and its path for sustainable long-term growth and value creation could not be more clear.
Taken together, I'm entering this year with a strong sense of optimism.
We have a best-in-class portfolio of brands with momentum, a leadership team across our brands and enterprise that possesses the skills and capabilities to lead our teams and to deliver on our commitments.
There are tailwinds from both the strengthening consumer across the globe and in the categories where we are most present, and inventory levels are in good shape.
Each of our brands are uniquely positioned to thrive in the coming year and return to their respective long range plans as we emerge from this crisis as a stronger company.
And first, Steve, let me say how honored, excited and appreciative I am to have the opportunity to serve as CFO of this amazing 122-year old company.
Rest assured, you've had an impact on VF that is immeasurable and you will be missed by all, but by none more than me.
Best wishes my friend.
So, let me start with an overview of the operating environment across geographic regions.
Starting with the Americas, the U.S. environment continues to improve with vaccine distribution, easing lock down measures, and a strengthening consumer.
We started Q4 with about 15% of our doors closed in the region, mostly in California.
As we sit today, virtually all of these doors have reopened.
While store traffic remains depressed, conversion and AUR have been strong, and we have seen sequential improvement across the brick-and-mortar fleet, with a notable acceleration in March.
Each of our largest brands returned to double-digit growth in the Americas, and our total D2C business increased 16% led by 57% growth from digital.
Wholesale channel inventories remain clean, particularly across the outdoor categories, which will provide a strong backdrop to the U.S. wholesale business as we progressed through fiscal 2022.
In EMEA, the region has been impacted by rolling store closures throughout the entirety of fiscal '21 and our teams continue to navigate this disruption during Q4.
We started the quarter with about half of our doors closed and finished the quarter with about 60% of doors closed.
Key markets such as the U.K. and Germany were basically fully closed throughout the fourth quarter.
Lockdowns are expected to ease beginning in May for most countries, except Germany and France, although a slower start to vaccine rollouts will likely hindered the pace of recovery in the coming months.
Despite this choppier brick-and-mortar recovery, our teams have continued to leverage digital, driving 99% growth in that channel during the period, with broad based strength across the portfolio.
Vans digital increased 92%; The North Face, 118%; and Timberland, 122%.
Our strong partnerships with digital partners such as Asos and Zalando also delivered impressive growth, accelerating in the quarter.
We expect strong underlying digital momentum to translate into accelerated growth in fiscal 2022.
The APAC region has demonstrated incredible resiliency throughout the past year, led by Greater China and a strong consumer.
Our Greater China business surpassed the $1 billion milestone in fiscal '21 growing 20%, capped off by 70% growth in Q4.
Congratulations to our teams in the region for this important milestone.
This represents nearly 25% growth over our fiscal 2019 Q4 revenue, the prior peak before the impact of COVID.
All VF brands achieved growth in the region, led by 93% growth at The North Face and 107% growth at Dickies.
We continue to view China as the leading indicator of the broader recovery in our business.
And as our largest growth opportunity, we remain focused on maintaining momentum and continuing with investments focused toward our Distort to Asia strategy.
The transition of our brand leadership teams and commercial operations to Shanghai is on track, which includes standing up a digital hub and establishing a consumer centric structure that will help us transform and advance our capabilities serving Greater China and the region.
Globally, our supply chain teams continue to navigate port congestion, capacity constraints, transitory cost pressures, and elevated volatility across the network.
Our teams are working tirelessly to minimize the impact of these challenges.
However, we expect volatility and certain headwinds to continue for the foreseeable future.
Fortunately, we have one of the strongest supply chains in the industry and are prepared for this challenge, having successfully navigated the unprecedented disruption over the past year.
Now, moving into our fourth quarter highlights.
The impact of this was contemplated in our 2021 outlook shared in January.
This benefit was magnified relative to Q4 due to the low base in the prior year and supply chain disruptions resulting from COVID-19.
Importantly, this dynamic is reflected in the fiscal 2022 plan growth rates we will cover shortly.
VF delivered 19% growth in Q4 or 12% organic growth despite headwinds from supply chain disruptions and more extended lockdowns throughout Europe.
The strength of our business was broad based with 16% growth from the Big Four brands, an acceleration for many of our emerging brands, highlighted by a 53% growth from Altra.
In its first quarter with VF, the Supreme brand contributed over $140 million of revenue, exceeding our expectations.
As expected, Vans inflected positively, delivering 10% global growth as strength in the Americas and APAC regions more than offset larger than expected headwinds from store closures in Europe.
Globally, Vans has seen balanced momentum and performance across heritage and progression footwear.
During Q4, skate high, authentic and old-school heritage styles each grew double digit, while the proskate and MTE progression lines each grew more than 30%.
Apparel also performed well, including mid-teens growth in women.
Van's digital growth accelerated to 52% including a growing contribution from omnichannel sales which represented over 10% of digital revenue in the Americas.
Vans stores also returned to growth globally after sequential quarterly improvement throughout fiscal 2021.
Vans D2C consumers returned strongly during March, both in stores and online and across both existing and new consumers.
The Vans family loyalty program added 1.2 million members in the U.S. in the last four months and now has nearly 15 million enrolled globally.
With the reopening of Vans store fleet, new membership growth has accelerated in March and April.
The North Face delivered 23% growth led by 56% growth in digital.
TNF achieved double-digit growth across all regions and channels as outdoor category tailwinds remain robust globally.
From a product standpoint, the brand experienced relative strength from several on mountain categories including outerwear led by our FutureLight offering and footwear, led by our new VECTIV line.
We see continued validation of the brand's innovation engine, recently highlighted in Outside Magazine's 2021 Summer Buyers Guide, which feature six products from The North Face, including Gear of the Year Awards for two VECTIV products, awarded the best trail running and hiking shoes of 2021.
Momentum at The North Face also extent to the brand's off mountain product portfolio, with strength from logowear and Iconic franchises such as the Nuptse, which increased more than 75%.
The brand also wrapped up the Gucci collab, with the largest earned media campaign in The North Face's history with more than 17 billion impressions, yielding worldwide 100% sell-through of all collaboration outerwear.
And lastly, due partially to an exceptionally strong first responder program throughout fiscal 2021, The North Face's digital business increased 63% including 49% growth in new paid customers via adding 1.6 million in new loyalty members in the Americas.
Timberland increased 19% with continued momentum behind outdoor footwear, apparel, Timberland PRO, and an accelerating classics business.
Digital increased 96% with additional strength from key digital retail partners.
The brand successfully rolled out several new product stories including GreenStride which has garnered strong early read.
Timberland delivered 54% global digital growth in fiscal 2021 and is entering this year with broad-based momentum across the product portfolio.
Finally, Dickies increased 19% with continued strength across regions channels and categories.
The brand continued its strong performance in APAC, highlighted by more than 120% growth in Greater China.
Work inspired lifestyle product increased at a double-digit rate across all regions and represented 40% of total revenue.
Despite headwinds from the pandemic, the brand delivered 7% growth in fiscal 2021 through strong execution against the strategic pillars of digital, China and work-inspired product categories.
Fourth quarter adjusted earnings per share was $0.27, including a $0.06 contribution from Supreme, representing 89% organic growth and a strong start to our earnings recovery.
Our liquidity remained strong as we ended the year with approximately $1.45 billion in cash and short-term investments and approximately $2.2 billion remaining undrawn on our revolver.
As Steve referenced earlier, we've entered into a definitive agreement to sell our Occupational Work business to Redwood Capital Investments, which is expected to close in late Q1.
This will provide an additional source of liquidity and further reduce our net leverage position.
Moving now to our outlook for fiscal 2022.
We expect total VF revenue to approximate $11.8 billion, representing about 28% growth from fiscal '21 and a low double-digit increase relative to our prior peak revenue in fiscal 2020.
This includes approximately $600 million of Supreme revenue.
Excluding the Supreme business, our fiscal 2022 outlook implies growth of about 23%, representing high-single-digit growth relative to fiscal 2020.
By brand, we expect Vans to generate between 26% and 28% growth, representing a 7% to 9% increase relative to prior peak revenue.
The North Face is expected to increase between 25% and 27%, representing 14% to 16% growth relative to fiscal 2020 and surpassing $3 billion in global brand revenue.
We expect Timberland to increase between 16% and 18%, which implies revenue in line with prior peak levels.
Lastly, we expect continued strength from Dickies with growth accelerating to between 10% and 12% which implies revenue up about 20% from fiscal 2020.
By region, excluding Supreme, we expect Europe to increase about 30%, representing about 15% growth relative to prior peak revenue.
We expect continued momentum in APAC with close to 20% organic growth led by ongoing strength in China, where we expect growth to exceed 20%.
In the Americas, we expect organic revenue growth of greater than 20%.
By channel, again excluding Supreme, we expect our D2C business to increase between 28% and 30%, including about 15% growth in digital.
We expect approximately half of total VF revenue to come from D2C this year.
And including pure play digital wholesale, we expect our total digital penetration in fiscal 2022 to exceed 30%.
Finally, our wholesale business is expected to grow at a high-teen rate, essentially recovering revenue lost over the past year and returning to prior peak levels.
Moving down the P&L, we expect gross margin in excess of 56%, representing organic margins above prior peak levels.
We expect an operating margin of about 12.8%, which implies high single-digit organic growth in our SG&A spend relative to fiscal 2020 levels.
Now, let me take a moment and unpack our expected SG&A growth relative to those prior peak levels.
A large piece of the growth relates to continued investment against our growth focused strategic priorities.
Relative to fiscal '20, our fiscal '22 plan assumes over $150 million of incremental investments in demand creation and our business model transformation to be more consumer-minded, retail-centric and hyper-digital, which supports the strong growth commitments cover today.
Other large drivers within SG&A are episodic to this year.
A large piece of the growth is simply from foreign currency.
Foreign currency translation represents about 20% of the expected dollar growth in SG&A.
Another episodic piece of our SG&A growth relate to elevated distribution and freight.
We are confident in our ability to mitigate these cost pressures over time in addition to the strong pricing power our brands enjoy globally.
However, higher costs will be a near-term headwind to profitability.
Moving forward, we see a path to SG&A leverage as we exit fiscal 2022.
And given the composition of our portfolio today, we see at minimum, a return to our long-term earnings algorithm from our 2024 plan with strong gross margin expansion and SG&A leverage supporting investment optionality.
To wrap up our fiscal 2022 P&L outlook, we expect our tax rate to approximate 15%, which brings us to earnings per share of about $3.05, including an expected $0.25 per share contribution from the Supreme brand.
Finally, we expect to generate over $1 billion in operating cash flow.
Capital expenditures are planned to approximate $350 million.
This includes the impact of growth investments as well as deferred capital spending from fiscal 2021 as a result of COVID.
There are no changes to our capital allocation priorities moving forward.
Our strong balance sheet will continue to be a focus and we expect to end fiscal 2022 with net leverage between 2.5 times and 3 times.
We remain committed to growing our dividend.
And, as always, we will remain opportunistic with M&A and other capital allocation alternatives, which we will explore as appropriate.
So, in summary, we could be -- we could not be more pleased with how VF has navigated fiscal 2021.
We fully executed on our plans in a challenging environment, driving digital growth, managing free cash flow, and investing in our organic business while evolving our portfolio to best position us for long-term value creation.
As a result of the hard work throughout fiscal '21, we're exiting this year with broad-based momentum across the portfolio and I'm very confident in VF's ability to drive accelerated growth into fiscal '22 and beyond.

user
compname says 2022 revenue is expected to approximate $11.8 billion.
sees fy adjusted earnings per share $3.05.
sees fy revenue $11.8 billion.
q4 adjusted earnings per share $0.27 including a $0.06 contribution from acquisitions.
qtrly revenue increased 23% (up 19% in constant dollars) to $2.6 billion.
2022 revenue is expected to approximate $11.8 billion.

assistant