Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Lorraine Maikis - Bank of America/Merrill Lynch.
Lorraine Maikis - Bank of America/Merrill Lynch
I saw that you're planning to open a number of stores in addition to closing some. Can you just talk about why in this environment you're taking the step to open new stores and just give us an idea maybe of the performance of the outlet, if that's what's driving those openings?
Glenn Murphy
I would say it's two ways, Lorraine. One is, as I mentioned in my remarks, that we believe in our international business, namely the corporate international business we control in the U.K., the Republic of Ireland, France and Japan, we still have some opportunities to open some stores.
One of those is that Banana Republic really just has one store currently and it's at Regent Street in London, so we see some opportunities for Banana Republic in the U.K. In Japan as we go forward there's also some Banana Republic opportunities. They're more store in store opportunities in department stores. And after that, really, it's an outlet play. Some outlet opportunities in North America, mostly in Canada, where we only have two outlet stores right now, and in Japan, where we only have 10 - 10 in the U.K. - where we have less than 10.
So the math, I think, that Sabrina and I did last night is about 75% of that number you heard her quote, that 50 new stores, is split between international and outlets.
Lorraine Maikis - Bank of America/Merrill Lynch
And then could you give us an update on your real estate initiatives on how the discussions with the landlords are going about closing or consolidating stores?
Glenn Murphy
You know, I think when it comes to the store closures, those are always conversations we've had. And as leases expire and they get terminated, then we have a chance to close stores to a combination of relocations. Pure closures, we're looking at about 100 stores in 2009 that we're going to be dealing with, and that's just the normal course of business. That's about 3% of our fleet. We've had those conversations on a much larger scale in terms of closures over the last five or six years.
In terms of our ability to reposition locations, I think that they recognize we are trying to consolidate stores where that makes sense. This is mostly Kids and Baby locations and the Gap locations and create a combo store, as we call it here, but also downsizes of Old Navies.
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