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: We are very pleased with our fourth quarter earnings performance, which was significantly ahead of our expectations.
In the period we delivered adjusted earnings per share of $1.18 compared to $1.22 last year.
While our revenues were 23% below last year and in line with our expectations, our digital businesses accelerated more than what we had anticipated, posting a 38% revenue increase in North America and Europe and our licensing business also outperformed.
Offsetting these improvements were lower retail revenues due to additional store closures and restrictions, mostly in Europe and Canada and an anticipated shift in wholesale shipments in Europe into Q1.
In spite of the revenue decline we managed our business well and delivered an adjusted operating margin of 11.4% in the period, only 70 basis points below last year.
The main driver of the outperformance for the quarter was our gross margin, which increased 240 basis points versus last year.
With this performance we closed a challenging but rewarding year for our Company.
While we experienced a significant revenue contraction of 30% in the year due to the pandemic, we were very proactive and lead the business carefully managing inventories well and controlling expenses tightly.
All considered, we were able to reverse our first quarter adjusted operating loss of $109 million to close the year with an adjusted operating profit of $20 million.
We ended the year in a good inventory position.
We have the right product and our ownership is appropriate to service our business well in the new fiscal year.
As with the rest of our industry, we have experienced disruption in our supply chain both to sourcing and transportation, which has caused some delays in product deliveries globally.
However, given the fact that we were operating with restrictions in some regions, we were able to appropriately allocate the product to service our demand.
These conditions have resulted in limited supply, contributing to less promotional activity across the industry from which we are benefiting.
In addition to time, these delays caused an increase in transportation costs.
Of course, we have been prioritizing shipments and choosing alternative transportation options to minimize this cost.
We believe that the port congestion delays, including the recent event in the Suez Canal, will be normalized by the summer, and we have made provisions to anticipate the receipt of goods wherever possible to mitigate further delays.
During the year, we prioritized our investments in our digital and omnichannel initiatives and rationalized our global store footprint and expense structure.
We also returned value to our shareholders via dividends and we purchased $39 million of our shares.
We closed the year with a strong balance sheet with $469 million in cash.
I am encouraged by our trends entering the new year.
It is clear that the customer is responding well to our products and assortments.
Our digital channels are accelerating, our wholesale business shows we are gaining market share and when our stores are open, they are performing well with solid product sell-throughs.
Our customer traffic is showing sequential improvement while still significantly below pre-COVID levels.
At the same time, our conversion continues to meaningfully exceed pre-COVID levels.
In the US, we are experiencing a considerable acceleration in our direct to consumer businesses since the stimulus checks were announced.
We are confident in our business as we emerge from this pandemic.
As vaccination levels increase across different countries in the upcoming months, as we have seen in the US, the consumer will be inspired to venture out and buy new clothes.
Our product assortment is ideal for post-pandemic business in our industry.
I believe that lifestyles have been forever altered by the pandemic and casualization is here to stay.
I am pleased that we expanded our line to include categories like athleisure and essentials to support this lifestyle.
But we also have rich assortments of dressier apparel and accessories for multiple occasions which will resonate as our customers begin to socialize again.
we flourish in times like this.
There is a strength of character that is present in the Guess?
Our founders had this since day one and Paul has that same strength and commitment for our Company, our team and our Guess?
brand today, something he demonstrates every single day with this work.
The proof of courage in Guess?
is evident with every decision we make, always running the business with a long-term view, leading our team with a clear vision to build the Company and the value of our brand for the next generation, not just the next quarter.
Our capacity to adapt to each and every change in the industry and the business has been validated by the multiple business model changes our Company has endured successfully over the last 40 years.
From our denim category assortment to our lifestyle offering and brand image, from own businesses to licensed ones, from wholesale to retail, from a domestic business to a global one, from bricks and mortar retail to an omni-channel model, I strongly believe that our Company's ability to adapt to change is the foundation of our business success and value creation.
I will now pass the call to Katie and I will return to review and update our five-year strategic plan.
I'm happy to report that we finished this fiscal year strong with our fourth quarter earnings significantly exceeding our expectations despite higher COVID resurgences across the globe.
With revenue in line with our outlook, but margin significantly higher than expected, we were able to deliver $74 million in adjusted operating profit.
We saw operating profit increases to prior year in all of our business segments except for Europe which was significantly impacted by government mandated store closures and a shift in wholesale shipments.
We also saw a nice momentum in our e-commerce business, which was up 38% for the quarter in North America and Europe versus 19% in Q3 and 9% in Q2.
And let me take you through the details.
Fourth quarter revenues were $648 million, down 23% in US dollars and 26% in constant currency.
Stronger than expected momentum in our European digital business and an increase in licensing revenue was offset by the impact of continued COVID resurgences.
The impact of temporary store closures on our sales versus prior year for the total Company during the quarter was about 10%, mostly in Europe, but also in Canada.
We had some anticipated shifts in European wholesale shipments which were worth about 6% of total Company sales to prior year.
Excluding these two factors, the 23% Q4 sales decline would have been a decline of about 7%.
Now let me get into the detail on sales performance by segment.
In Americas Retail revenues were down 24% in constant currency where negative store comps and temporary and permanent store closures were partially offset by growth in our e-commerce business.
Store comps in the US and Canada were down 21% in constant currency, slightly better than Q3, which was down 23% as continued sequential improvement in US sales was offset by softening in Canada due to traffic declines as a result of the pandemic.
The underlying trend in the US showed even greater recovery.
However, the business was hurt by restrictions on capacity and consumers avoiding crowds on what are typically the busiest shopping days of the year.
In fact, if we remove the five super high-volume days in Q4 from the sales calculation, our Q4 store sales comp in the US and Canada would have been about 5% better than what we reported.
In Europe, revenues were down 32% in constant currency.
As you know, the region started experiencing increased lockdowns and operating restrictions at the end of Q3, which continued to the end of the fourth quarter and remain in place today.
Store comps for Europe were down 26% in constant currency, significantly impacted by the increase in COVID levels in that region.
Our e-commerce sales, however, accelerated nicely in the fourth quarter and helped to mitigate some of these headwinds.
As Carlos mentioned, the wholesale business in Europe in Q4 was down to prior year as a result of the planned shift in shipments for the spring, summer collection into next year.
In Asia store comps were down 22% in constant currency driven by a resurgence of the virus in some of those markets like Korea.
Our Americas Wholesale business was down 14% in constant currency compared to down 34% last quarter and 49% in Q2, still under pressure from the deceleration in demand, but showing vast improvement quarter-to-quarter.
Licensing revenues were strong, up 12% to prior year in Q4, driven by continuing recovery in the business, but also some timing in sales.
Gross margin for the quarter was 42.6%, 240 basis points higher than prior year.
Our product margin increased 140 basis points this quarter primarily as a result of higher IMU, as well as lower promotions.
Occupancy rate decreased 100 basis points as a result of rent relief and business mix, partially offset by deleverage on sales.
This quarter we booked roughly $15 million in rent credits for fully negotiated rent relief deals across Europe, North America and Asia.
There is still some negotiations with our landlords that are outstanding and we are also extending our conversations with landlords to address the second round of closures.
Adjusted SG&A for the quarter was $202 million compared to $237 million in the prior year, a decrease of $35 million or 15% and better than our expectations.
We continue to benefit from changes to our expense structure, lower advertising spend and a decrease in expenses related to permanent store closures versus last year.
In addition, there were some one-time benefits from government subsidies, mainly in Europe, which were partially offset by higher variable expenses related to the growth of our e-commerce business.
Adjusted operating profit for the fourth quarter was $74 million versus $102 million in Q4 of last year.
Our fourth quarter adjusted tax rate was 7%, down from 17% last year, driven by the mix of statutory earnings.
Inventories were $389 million, down 1% in US dollars and down 5% in constant currency versus last year.
Our inventory levels in Europe were artificially high due to the timing of inventory receipts and the increase in in-transit inventory due to the transit delays that Carlos mentioned earlier.
We ended the year with $469 million in cash versus $285 million in the prior year and we had an incremental $272 million in borrowing capacity.
Capital expenditures for the year were $19 million, down from $62 million prior year.
Free cash flow for the year was $183 million, an increase of $50 million versus $133 million last year.
This year, we benefited from lower capital expenditures, extended payment terms with our vendors and unpaid rents.
In addition, last year's outflow included the non-recurring payment of the $46 million European Commission fine.
This was a strong finish to a tough year.
For the fiscal year, we lost almost $800 million or 30% of our sales versus prior year as a result of the pandemic.
However, we were still able to maintain positive adjusted operating profit of $20 million, $130 million lower than prior year, allowing for only 16% of those lost revenues to flow through to our bottom line.
This demonstrates the tremendous control that we have over what we can control and a super dynamic global environment.
This year we expanded product margins, executed over $30 million in rent abatement and relief, cut SG&A by over 20% and managed our capital very tightly, all the while we had our eye on the future of our brand, positioning this Company to win as we emerge from the pandemic.
We returned value to our shareholders reinstating our dividend in Q3 and completing $39 million of share repurchases at an average price of $10.
And while COVID will remain a near-term headwind, there is reason to be hopeful as vaccines roll out.
Now let's talk about our near-term future.
Given the continued level of uncertainty in the current environment, we are not going to provide formal guidance.
However, I will walk you through how we are thinking about the first quarter.
I'm going to anchor our comparisons to the pre-COVID Q1 of fiscal year 2020, which ended May 4th, 2019 as this past year's fiscal first quarter is clearly not a normalized comparison.
We expect first quarter revenues to be down in the high single digits to fiscal year 2020 as pandemic-related shutdowns and traffic declines are partially offset by continued momentum in our global e-commerce business and the favorable timing of our wholesale shipments in Europe.
Quarter-to-date, we have seen sales comps at our retail locations of down 4% in the US and Canada, down 19% in Europe, and down 22% in Asia.
Our business in Europe continues to be impacted by government mandated store closures.
Currently, we have over 240 stores closed with approximately 400 additional stores with reduced operating hours.
E-commerce growth has continued to accelerate and is up 58% to prior year for the quarter-to-date in North America and Europe.
Lastly, as discussed, Q1 will benefit from the shift of wholesale shipments in Europe for the spring, summer collection from Q4 of this past year.
We estimate that the negative impact of the temporary store closures will roughly offset the positive impact of the wholesale timing for the quarter.
In terms of profit, adjusted gross margin in the first quarter is expected to be around 200 basis points better than fiscal quarter 2020, driven primarily by business mix as well as improved IMUs.
We anticipate that this margin expansion will be offset by an increase in adjusted SG&A expenses as a percent of sales as deleverage from lost revenue will be partially offset by the cost savings initiatives rolled out over the last year.
For full fiscal year 2022, we expect revenues down in the high single digits to the fiscal year 2020 barring COVID shutdowns past Q1.
This includes the resumption of a normal cadence for product development and shipments for European wholesale.
As you may recall, in response to the pandemic last year we made the strategic decision to elongate the fall-winter season shipping window and cancel the development of the pre-spring, summer line.
We are not planning on repeating this in fiscal 2022.
With that, I'll hand it back to Carlos to talk about the five-year strategic business plan.
I'm very excited to share with you today my view of our future.
This past year was truly a year of crisis, but like Winston Churchill said we didn't let the crisis go to waste.
During the year, we made great progress executing our strategic plan and were able to accelerate the implementation of several key initiatives.
Today, we are confirming our strong belief that our opportunities for value creation remain intact for us.
Furthermore, we remain committed to delivering net revenues of $2.9 billion and an operating margin of 10% by fiscal year 2025.
I am confident that we have an opportunity to more than double our earnings per share to $3 and increase our free cash flow by 65% by fiscal 2025 respect to fiscal 2020.
As a result, we plan to more than double our return on invested capital to 26% by fiscal 2025 from 12% in fiscal 2020.
Let me begin with a quick review of our key accomplishments last year.
From the beginning of the pandemic, we focused on the areas we could control, including our capital availability and liquidity.
We managed our capital effectively and were able to return value to our shareholders through share repurchases and the reinstatement of our dividend when our visibility improved.
We were able to accelerate the implementation of our new sales force platform in the US, Canada and Europe, which is now fully complete.
This is a major milestone for us and the initial results are very strong.
For example in Europe, we have a faster platform with a homepage download over 3.5 times faster, a 13% lower bounce rate and an 18% increase in mobile conversion rate from our previous site.
We also rolled out omni-channel capabilities in Europe in addition to North America and we expanded our online product assortment globally.
During the year, we were able to rationalize our store portfolio closing over 125 underperforming stores and renegotiating 290 leases at favorable terms.
As part of the store rationalization, we were successful in repositioning our business in China, partnering with four new franchisees in separate regions of the country to represent Guess?
with local market expertise and capital for expansion.
And we also integrated our G by Guess?
brand into our GUESS Factory business in the US, converting almost 60 of our stores which have already shown very encouraging results.
Last but not least, we identified ways to transform our business model.
This includes a global reorganization of our team, an omni-channel focus for our direct to consumer business, the development of our first global product line and the introduction of new product categories like athleisure and essentials.
We also worked hard to eliminate redundancies and streamline processes across our operations.
Last year during our Investor Day we shared our purpose to inspire our customers to feel confident and passionate about their style and their future.
we dare to dream.
That same day we shared our vision for our organization and our commitment.
These constitute a timeless foundation for our team and our Company.
As I said, we see an extra ordinary opportunity to create significant value for our stakeholders over the next four years and beyond.
This starts with our opportunity to gain market share and all the markets and businesses that we operate.
I believe the value of our offering represented by the quality, styling and price of our products is unmatched in today's marketplace.
Capacity has been eliminated in our space, primarily as a result of substantial store closures.
Furthermore, many of our wholesale customers have chosen to concentrate their buys with fewer, stronger brands and we are certainly one of them.
Somewhat related to this is our opportunity for product category growth.
I believe that we have an amazing assortment in key product categories such as denim, outerwear and handbags to expand our presence in the marketplace.
And our new product lines like athleisure and essentials give us additional opportunity for growth.
While we are currently in approximately 100 countries, we have whitespace in multiple markets where we are underdeveloped.
China, Russia, Poland and Germany are just good examples of this.
Our opportunity for operating margin expansion has been well documented and the asset-light model that we are creating at Guess?
will contribute to our ability to more than double our return on invested capital in the next few years.
Last year we also shared the six strategic objectives of our five-year plan.
This plan still constitutes the right roadmap for our future, despite the changes in the environment over the last year.
Our six pillars are, one, organization and culture.
We will always strive to have a best-in-class team that works effectively and efficiently together.
We strive for our brands to be relevant with three key target consumer groups, heritage, Millennials and Generation Z customers.
We will design, make and distribute amazing product to support our customers' lifestyles.
We will always place the customer at the center of everything we do.
Five, is global footprint.
We will develop an effective and profitable global distribution ecosystem.
And six, functional capabilities.
We will always invest in our infrastructure to support our business well long term.
For our organization and culture objective we are organizing our teams, emphasizing global functional responsibilities and capitalizing on local market expertise and accountability.
We also plan to develop each market with an omnichannel approach where the accountability is placed on one team to develop all channels in the market instead of using a traditional approach with separate accountability by channel and business unit.
we strive to be a conscious capitalist organization and we consider our ESG priorities a driving force for change.
We have big goals to improve our environmental agenda and deliver 100% denim to be equal and 100% recycle synthetic materials and packaging by 2030.
Today we are at 25%.
brand has always been in business with a strong and consistent point of view.
We know who we are and we know who we are not.
Our brand well-protected is a lifetime asset.
And it is for this reason that we have a plan to elevate our brand.
Quality and consistency are key to strengthening our brand relevancy and the new customer environment.
Quality starts with product, the quality of the materials we use, a sustainability focus on increased perceived value for each item are key to win in this area.
We plan to increase full price selling, reduce promotional activity and focus on certain key product categories.
And last but not least, in order to elevate our brand we must elevate the customer experience across our Guess?
ecosystem including stores, websites, wholesale partners and licensees all over the world.
In addition, collaborations, partnerships and unique go-to-market strategies are key to drive brand awareness and fuel new customer acquisition, especially for the younger consumers.
Our next strategic pillar is about product excellence.
In our business, product is everything.
We have four key initiatives to fulfill this objective in the next four years.
First is product quality, styling and assortment.
Second is our focus on key product categories.
They consist of women's and men's apparel, including denim, athelisure and essential products, handbags, footwear and kids.
Our third product initiative is our one global line.
As we have said in the past, this initiative drives consistency in all markets, enables us to elevate the quality of our products and will result in significant efficiencies throughout our supply chain.
Our fourth initiative regarding product is the expansion of our assortment to support our omnichannel business.
The next pillar is about customer centricity.
We have four big goals to optimize our strategy.
Customer data collection and analysis, the understanding of our customer segments, their journeys and their preferences, creation of a seamless customer experience using world-class tools and the optimization of customer engagement on brand loyalty programs.
On the heels of our sales force and omnichannel capability rollout, we are implementing Customer 360, a fully integrated suite developed by salesforce.
This solution will enable us to optimize data capture, dissect the customer journeys engagement, conduct personalized marketing and analyze the results of every activity and point of engagement.
Regarding CRM and our loyalty program.
We have a rich global base with almost 5 million customers in all three regions and we see big opportunities to put the Customer 360 tool to work on this and grow this program in the next few years.
Regarding our global footprint, I believe stores are a key component in our omnichannel network, a great environment to represent our lifestyle brand and our number one customer acquisition vehicle.
We have been very successful in rationalizing our global store fleet over the last few years and still have significant flexibility to optimize our portfolio as 80% of our leases worldwide are expiring in the next three years.
We made the decision to exit more than 15 unprofitable flagship locations, some of which have already been closed while others are planned to close later this year.
And as I mentioned, we will continue to pursue opportunistic new store openings in those markets where we are underrepresented.
All together, we estimate that our plan will contribute to 200 basis points of operating margin improvement by fiscal year 2025 versus fiscal year 2020.
Next I will touch on our functional capabilities.
Over the next few years, we will focus on optimizing our product management, leveraging technology to become a true data-driven business and creating meaningful efficiencies across our global organization.
We think about product management optimization from end to end.
This means, product development, sourcing and production to distribution and logistics to inventory management.
There are a few key components to this plan.
We are migrating our suppliers to the most efficient places and consolidating vendors to achieve both operational and cost efficiencies.
In fact, over the last two years we have reduced our number of suppliers by over 60%.
Faster lead times to market are more important now than ever.
We are digitalizing our product development processes, which could reduce lead times by up to two months as well as conducting capacity planning with our key vendors to react quickly to changes in demand.
In distribution and logistics we are developing an efficient global network that capitalizes on low cost labor regions and automation.
Inventory management is key to maximizing both sales and margin.
We are focusing on assortment planning, allocation, fulfillment and markdown optimization.
I believe that becoming a data-driven organization is a key enabler to allowing us to compete effectively in the future.
This process is an evolution and must remain a constant focus for us.
Our technology plan supports our strategic plan and is anchored in innovation and data analysis.
Some initiatives, in addition to the technology work that we're doing on customer centricity, include modernizing and enhancing our systems to ensure a reliable, secure and integrated global infrastructure and a migration to the cloud.
Lastly, as a global organization we are focused on a true global infrastructure.
This means simplifying our business practices and eliminating system and process redundancies across the globe.
In Europe, we have a multi-channel, multi-country infrastructure in place.
We will leverage this model to streamline the organization and drive cost savings.
This is a big opportunity for us.
This is the last chapter in my professional journey and I am giving everything I have to make it extraordinary.
I have a great partner in Paul, a great team, an incredible brand and a dynamic business.
Our position in the market is strong and staying focused on this roadmap will allow us to grow our business very profitably.
I am very confident in our team's ability to execute our plan and meaningfully grow the value of this great company.
With that, let me pass it to Katie.
Let me give you some more color on the financials that fall out of the strategic plan.
As Carlos mentioned, we are confirming the commitment that we presented in December of 2019 to deliver 10% operating margins by fiscal year 2025.
And while we still believe in sales growth for our brand over the next few years, I get particularly excited that the meat of our path to double earnings per share from fiscal year 2020 to $3 in fiscal year 2025 lies in the middle of the P&L, where we have the most control.
And this past year is proof that we can execute what we can control.
As we did with Q1, we are going to anchor our comparisons in this conversation to the pre-COVID fiscal year 2020, which ended February 1st, 2020 for a more normalized comparison.
In terms of revenue we anticipate that we will reach $2.9 billion in fiscal 2025 versus $2.7 billion in fiscal 2020.
Most of this growth is being fueled by our e-commerce business with growth in wholesale being offset by a decline in retail.
As a result, we see our e-commerce penetration of direct to consumer sales growing from 13% in fiscal year 2020 to 23% in fiscal year 2025.
I'll mention that e-comm penetration was 22% this past year, but that was inflated a bit with the pandemic induced store closures.
In terms of adjusted operating margin, we see 440 basis points of growth over the next few years.
The vast majority, 400 basis points, is coming from operational efficiencies with the remaining 40 basis points coming from leverage on higher sales.
Store portfolio optimization represents a large portion of the margin expansion, about 200 basis points.
This is higher than we had modeled pre-pandemic.
We expect 90 basis points of supply chain efficiencies primarily from better IMUs.
We've been very successful in expense streamlining this year and are working on longer term opportunities as well.
We anticipate 70 basis points of margin expansion from fiscal 2020 in this area.
Lastly is logistics which is expected to contribute 40 basis points of operating margin improvement.
The operational efficiencies that Carlos mentioned will be partially offset by variable costs associated with e-commerce growth.
We see the 400 basis points of operational efficiency falling roughly equally over the next four fiscal years as some of the initiatives require some lead time.
I will say though that while the underlying savings will be present in fiscal year 2022 sales to leverage will slightly offset the impact on operating margin expansion from these savings.
With that I'll pass it to Fabrice to walk you through the rest of the five-year financials.
Protecting our strong balance sheet and returning capital to shareholders was and remains the key priority for us.
We believe we can generate higher free cash flows over the next four years as we continue to remain disciplined on managing working capital and driving operating margin to 10%.
At the same time, we believe we can support our strategic plan with investment levels flat to 2020 of roughly $65 million.
This should result in $220 million of annual free cash flow by fiscal 2025, 1.7 times that of our fiscal 2020.
Turning to capital allocation.
Our picking order going forward will remain consistent.
Our first priority is to make the investments that will enable the execution of our strategic plan.
Our second priority is to return capital to shareholders through dividend and share repurchases.
We will continue to prioritize capital allocations throughout the technology and infrastructure that will support our transformation into a truly customer-centric, data-driven company.
We would invest in remodeling some of our key store locations across the globe and opening new stores in underpenetrated markets.
One of our key objectives is to improve our return on invested capital.
Our plan provides a path to increase profitability from the smaller but more efficient portfolio of assets.
As we exit underperforming stores, optimize our working capital and migrate to a capital-light model where appropriate, our goal is to more than double return on invested capital to 26% by fiscal 2025, that is 12% in fiscal 2020.
Our second priority is the dividend payment which we resumed in Q3.
We have been able to deliver significant shareholder value here in the past.
As a reminder, we repurchased slightly over 25% of our shares over the last two years at an average price of $15.76.
We believe that our five-year strategic plan provides a solid roadmap to value creation.
And we will continue to approach share repurchases opportunistically when we believe that our stock is trading below its intrinsic value.

user
compname reports q4 adjusted earnings per share $1.18.
q4 adjusted earnings per share $1.18.
reaffirms plan to deliver 10% operating margin by fiscal 2025.
not providing detailed guidance for q1 or full fiscal year ending january 29, 2022.
expect revenues in q1 of fiscal 2022 to be down in high-single digits versus q1 of fiscal 2020.
for fy 2022, assuming no covid-related shutdowns past q1, we expect revenues to be down in high single digits versus fiscal 2020.

assistant