Office Depot has operations in seventeen countries outside the United States and Canada. Our International Division, which was our most profitable business segment on an operating percentage basis, encompasses our foreign retail, catalog and Internet operations. Internationally, we operate under both the Office Depot and Viking brand names. The single largest component of our International Division is our Viking catalog business, operating through both direct mail and recently launched Internet sites.

While our international retail operations operate under the Office Depot name, we have direct mail and delivery operations in Australia, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, and the United Kingdom that operate primarily under the Viking Office Products brand. We are already a leading direct marketer of office products in Europe and Australia, just as we are in the United States.

In 1999, we continued to expand our international retail operations; and at the end of the year, we owned and operated 26 stores in France and 6 in Japan. In addition to these Company-owned retail operations, 86 other Office Depot retail stores in Colombia, Hungary, Israel, Mexico, Poland and Thailand operate under joint venture and/or licensing arrangements.

In March of 1999, Office Depot launched its first international Web site. Operating under the Viking brand, the site is tailored to the needs of the large and growing electronic commerce market in the United Kingdom. Located at www.viking-direct.co.uk, the site offers a broad spectrum of valuable features that have proven to be successful on our U.S. sites. These features include real-time inventory reports, address and payment authorization capabilities, access to and status of previous orders, flexible delivery and returns options, special speed features, cross-selling product suggestions, and information on select topics of interest to small businesses.