Item 1. Business

BUSINESS OVERVIEW

The TJX Companies, Inc. (TJX) is the leading off-price apparel and home fashions retailer in the United States and worldwide. Our over 3,300 stores offer a rapidly changing assortment of quality, fashionable, brand name and designer merchandise at prices generally 20% to 60% below department and specialty store regular prices on comparable merchandise, every day.

Our stores are known for our value proposition of brand, fashion, price and quality. Our opportunistic buying strategies and flexible business model differentiate us from traditional retailers. We offer a treasure hunt shopping experience and a rapid turn of inventories relative to traditional retailers. Our goal is to create a sense of excitement and urgency for our customers and encourage frequent customer visits. We acquire merchandise in a variety of ways to support that goal. We reach a broad range of customers across many income levels and other demographic groups with our value proposition. Our strategies and operations are synergistic across all of our retail chains. As a result, we are able to leverage our expertise throughout our business, sharing information, best practices, initiatives and new ideas, and to develop talent across our Company. We also leverage the substantial buying power of our businesses in our global relationships with vendors.

Our Businesses. We operate our business in four major divisions: Marmaxx and HomeGoods, both in the U.S., TJX Canada and TJX Europe.

MARMAXX:

Our T.J. Maxx and Marshalls chains in the United States (referred to together as The Marmaxx Group or Marmaxx) are collectively the largest off-price retailer in the United States with a total of 2,094 stores. We founded T.J. Maxx in 1976 and acquired Marshalls in 1995. Both chains sell family apparel (including footwear and accessories), home fashions (including home basics, accent furniture, lamps, rugs, wall décor, decorative accessories and giftware) and other merchandise. We primarily differentiate T.J. Maxx and Marshalls through different product assortment, including an expanded assortment of fine jewelry and accessories and a designer section called The Runway at T.J. Maxx and a full line of footwear, a broader men’s offering and a juniors’ department called The Cube at Marshalls, as well as varying in-store initiatives. This differentiated shopping experience at T.J. Maxx and Marshalls encourages our customers to shop both chains. Our e-commerce website, tjmaxx.com, was launched in 2013.

HOMEGOODS:

Our HomeGoods chain, introduced in 1992, is the leading off-price retailer of home fashions in the U.S. Through its 487 stores, HomeGoods offers a broad array of home fashions, including home basics, giftware, accent furniture, lamps, rugs, wall décor, decorative accessories from around the world, seasonal and other merchandise.

TJX CANADA:

Our TJX Canada division operates the Winners, HomeSense and Marshalls chains in Canada. Acquired in 1990, Winners is the leading off-price apparel and home fashions retailer in Canada. The merchandise offering at its 234 stores across Canada is comparable to T.J. Maxx, with select stores offering fine jewelry and The Runway, a designer section. We opened our HomeSense chain in 2001, bringing the home fashions off-price concept to Canada. HomeSense has 96 stores with a merchandise mix of home fashions similar to HomeGoods. We brought Marshalls to Canada in 2011 and operate 38 Marshalls stores in Canada. As with Marshalls in the U.S., our Canadian Marshalls stores offer an expanded footwear department and The Cube juniors’ department, differentiating them from Winners stores.

TJX EUROPE:

Our TJX Europe division operates the T.K. Maxx and HomeSense chains in Europe. Launched in 1994, T.K. Maxx introduced off-price retail to Europe and remains Europe’s only major brick-and-mortar off-price retailer of apparel and home fashions. With 407 stores, T.K. Maxx operates in the U.K., Ireland, Germany and Poland. At the beginning of fiscal 2016, we opened our first store in Austria. Through its stores and its e-commerce website for the U.K., tkmaxx.com, T.K. Maxx offers a merchandise mix similar to T.J. Maxx, Marshalls and Winners. We brought the off-price home fashions concept to Europe, opening HomeSense in the U.K. in 2008. Its 33 stores in the U.K. offer a merchandise mix of home fashions similar to that of HomeGoods in the U.S. and HomeSense in Canada.

In addition to our four major divisions, we operate Sierra Trading Post, acquired in 2012, a leading off-price Internet retailer of brand name and quality outdoor gear, family apparel and footwear, sporting goods and home fashions. Sierra Trading Post launched its e-commerce site, sierratradingpost.com, in 1998 and operates six retail stores in the U.S.

Flexible Business Model. Our flexible off-price business model, including our opportunistic buying, inventory management, logistics and store layouts, is designed to deliver our customers a compelling value proposition of fashionable, quality, brand name and designer merchandise at excellent values. Our buying and inventory management strategies give us flexibility to adjust our merchandise assortments more frequently than traditional retailers, and the design and operation of our stores and distribution centers support this flexibility. Our merchants have more visibility into consumer, fashion and market trends and pricing when we buy closer to need, which can help us “buy smarter” and reduce our markdown exposure. Our selling floor space is flexible, without walls between departments and largely free of permanent fixtures, so we can easily expand and contract departments to accommodate the merchandise we purchase. Our logistics and distribution operations are designed to support our buying strategies and to facilitate quick, efficient and differentiated delivery of merchandise to our stores, with a goal of getting the right merchandise to the right stores at the right times.

Opportunistic Buying. As an off-price retailer, our buying practices, which we refer to as opportunistic buying, differentiate us from traditional retailers. Our overall buying strategy is to acquire merchandise on an ongoing basis that will enable us to offer a desirable and rapidly changing mix of branded, designer and other quality merchandise in our stores at prices below regular prices for comparable merchandise at department and specialty stores. We seek out and select merchandise from the broad range of opportunities in the marketplace to achieve this end. Our buying organization, which numbers more than 1,000 Associates in 13 buying offices in ten countries, executes this opportunistic buying strategy in a variety of ways, depending on market conditions and other factors.

We take advantage of opportunities to acquire merchandise at substantial discounts that regularly arise from the production and flow of inventory in the apparel and home fashions marketplace, which include, among others, order cancellations, manufacturer overruns, closeouts and special production direct from brands and factories. Our buying strategies are intentionally flexible to allow us to react to frequently changing opportunities and trends in the market and to adjust how and what we source as well as when we source it. Our goal is to operate with lean inventory levels compared to conventional retailers to give us the flexibility to seek out and to take advantage of these opportunities as they arise. In contrast to traditional retailers, which tend to order most of their goods far in advance of the time the product appears on the selling floor, our merchants remain in the marketplace throughout the year, frequently looking for opportunities to buy merchandise. We buy much of our merchandise for the current or immediately upcoming selling season. We also buy some merchandise that is available in the market with the intention of storing it for sale, typically in future selling seasons. We generally make these purchases, referred to as packaway, in response to opportunities in the marketplace to buy merchandise that we believe has the right combination of brand, fashion, price and quality to supplement the product we expect to be available to purchase later for those future seasons. We also acquire some merchandise that we offer under in-house brands or brands that are licensed to us. We develop some of this merchandise ourselves in order to supplement the depth of, or fill gaps in, our expected merchandise assortment.

Our expansive vendor universe, which is in excess of 17,000, consists primarily of manufacturers along with retailers and other vendors, and provides us substantial and diversified access to merchandise. We have not

experienced difficulty in obtaining sufficient quality merchandise for our business in either favorable or difficult retail environments and expect this will continue as we continue to grow. We believe a number of factors provide us excellent access on an ongoing basis to leading branded merchandise and make us an attractive channel for many vendors in the market. We are typically willing to purchase less-than-full assortments of items, styles and sizes as well as quantities ranging from small to very large; we are able to disperse merchandise across our geographically diverse network of stores and to target specific markets; we pay promptly; we generally do not ask for typical retail concessions (such as advertising, promotional and markdown allowances), delivery concessions (such as drop shipments to stores or delayed deliveries) or return privileges and we have financial strength and an excellent credit rating.

Inventory Management. We offer our customers a rapidly changing selection of merchandise to create a treasure hunt experience in our stores and to spur frequent customer visits. To achieve this, we seek to turn the inventory in our stores rapidly, regularly offering fresh selections of apparel and home fashions at excellent values. Our specialized inventory planning, purchasing, monitoring and markdown systems, coupled with distribution center storage, processing, handling and shipping systems, enable us to tailor the merchandise in our stores to local preferences and demographics, achieve rapid in-store inventory turnover on a vast array of products and generally sell within the period we planned. We make pricing and markdown decisions and store inventory replenishment determinations centrally, using information provided by specialized computer systems designed to move inventory through our stores in a timely and disciplined manner. Over the past several years, we have been investing in our supply chain with the goal of continuing to operate with low inventory levels, to ship more efficiently and quickly and to more precisely and effectively allocate merchandise to each store.

Pricing. Our mission is to offer brand name and designer, fashionable, quality merchandise in our stores with retail prices that are generally 20% to 60% below department and specialty store regular retail prices on comparable merchandise, every day. We do not generally engage in promotional pricing activity such as sales or coupons. We have generally been able to react to price fluctuations in the wholesale market to maintain our pricing gap relative to prices offered by traditional retailers as well as our merchandise margins through various economic cycles.

Low Cost Operations. We operate with a low cost structure compared to many traditional retailers. We focus aggressively on expenses throughout our business. Our advertising is generally focused on promoting our retail banners rather than individual products, including at times promoting multiple banners together, which contributes to our advertising budget (as a percentage of sales) remaining low compared to many traditional retailers. We design our stores to provide a pleasant, convenient shopping environment but, relative to other retailers, do not spend heavily on store fixtures. Additionally, our distribution network is designed to run cost effectively.

Customer Service/Shopping Experience. We continue to renovate and upgrade our stores across our retail banners to enhance our customers’ shopping experience and help drive sales. Although we offer a self-service format, we train our store Associates to provide friendly and helpful customer service and seek to staff our stores to deliver a positive shopping experience. We typically offer customer-friendly return policies. We accept a variety of payment methods including cash, credit cards and debit cards, and offer TJX-branded credit cards in the U.S. through a bank, but do not own the customer receivables.

Distribution. We operate distribution centers encompassing approximately 13 million square feet in five countries. These centers are large, highly automated and built to suit our specific, off-price business model. We ship substantially all of our merchandise to our stores through these distribution centers as well as warehouses and shipping centers operated by third parties. We shipped approximately 2.1 billion units to our stores during fiscal 2015.

Store Growth. Expansion of our business through the addition of new stores continues to be an important part of our growth strategy. The following table provides information on the store growth of our four divisions in the last two fiscal years, our growth estimates for fiscal 2016 and our estimates of the store growth potential of these divisions in their current geographies:

Some of our HomeGoods and Canadian HomeSense stores are co-located with one of our apparel stores in a superstore format. We count each of the stores in the superstore format as a separate store.

Revenue Information. The percentages of our consolidated revenues by geography for the last three fiscal years are as follows:

The percentages of our consolidated revenues by major product category for the last three fiscal years are as follows:

Segment Overview. We operate four main business segments. Marmaxx (T.J. Maxx, Marshalls and tjmaxx.com) and HomeGoods both operate in the United States. Our TJX Canada segment operates Winners, HomeSense and Marshalls in Canada, and our TJX Europe segment operates T.K. Maxx, HomeSense and tkmaxx.com in Europe. We also operate Sierra Trading Post (STP), an off-price Internet retailer in the U.S. that we acquired late in fiscal 2013. The results of STP are reported in our Marmaxx segment. Each of our segments has its own management, administrative, buying and merchandising organization and distribution network. More detailed information about our segments, including financial information for each of the last three fiscal years, can be found in Note H to the consolidated financial statements.

STORE LOCATIONS.

Our major chains operated stores in the following locations at the end of fiscal 2015:

United States:

Store counts above include the T.J. Maxx, Marshalls or HomeGoods portion of a superstore. Additionally, TJX operates six Sierra Trading Post stores: two in Colorado, one in Idaho, one in Nevada and two in Wyoming, which are not included above.

Canada:

Store counts above include the Winners or HomeSense portion of a superstore.

Europe:

Competition. The retail apparel and home fashion business is highly competitive. We compete on the basis of factors including brand, fashion, price, quality, selection and freshness; in-store service and shopping experience; reputation and store location. We compete with local, regional, national and international department, specialty, off-price, discount, warehouse and outlet stores as well as other retailers that sell apparel, home fashions and other merchandise that we sell, whether in stores, through catalogues, on-line or other media.

Employees. At January 31, 2015, we had approximately 198,000 employees, many of whom work less than 40 hours per week. In addition, we hire temporary employees, particularly during the peak back-to-school and holiday seasons.

Trademarks. We have the right to use our principal trademarks and service marks, which are T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods, Winners, HomeSense, T.K. Maxx and Sierra Trading Post, in relevant countries. We expect our rights in these trademarks and service marks to endure in locations where we use them for as long as we continue to do so.

Seasonality. Our business is subject to seasonal influences. In the second half of the year, which includes the back-to-school and year-end holiday seasons, we generally realize higher levels of sales and income.

SEC Filings and Certifications. Copies of our annual reports on Form 10-K, proxy statements, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K filed with or furnished to the SEC, and any amendments to those documents, are available free of charge on our website, tjx.com, under “SEC Filings,” as soon as reasonably practicable after they are electronically filed with, or furnished to, the SEC. They are also available free of charge from TJX Global Communications, 770 Cochituate Road, Framingham, Massachusetts 01701. The public can read and copy materials at the SEC’s Public Reference Room at 100 F Street, NE, Washington, DC 20549 and obtain information on the operation of the reference room by calling the SEC at 1-800-SEC-0330. The SEC maintains a website containing all reports, proxies, information statements, and all other information regarding issuers that file electronically (www.sec.gov).

Information appearing on tjx.com is not a part of, and is not incorporated by reference in, this Form 10-K.

Fiscal 2013 means the fiscal year ended February 2, 2013, fiscal 2014 means the fiscal year ended February 1, 2014, fiscal 2015 means the fiscal year ended January 31, 2015 and fiscal 2016 means the fiscal year ending January 30, 2016. Unless otherwise indicated, all store information in this Item 1 is as of January 31, 2015, and references to store square footage are to gross square feet. Unless otherwise stated or the context otherwise requires, references in this Form 10-K to “TJX” and “we,” refer to The TJX Companies, Inc. and its subsidiaries.