Safeway 2004 Annual Report Download - page 57

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Report of Independent Registered
Public Accounting Firm
SAFEWAY INC. 2004 ANNUAL REPORT 55
To the Board of Directors and
Stockholders of Safeway Inc:
We have audited the accompanying consolidated balance
sheets of Safeway Inc. and subsidiaries (the “Company”) as
of January 1, 2005 and January 3, 2004, and the related
consolidated statements of operations, stockholders’ equity,
and cash flows for each of the three years in the period
ended January 1, 2005. These financial statements are the
responsibility of the Company’s management. Our responsi-
bility is to express an opinion on these financial statements
based on our audits.
We conducted our audits in accordance with the
standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight
Board (United States). Those standards require that we
plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance
about whether the financial statements are free of
material misstatement. An audit includes examining, on a
test basis, evidence supporting the amounts and
disclosures in the financial statements. An audit also
includes assessing the accounting principles used and
significant estimates made by management, as well as
evaluating the overall financial statement presentation.
We believe that our audits provide a reasonable basis for
our opinion.
In our opinion, such consolidated financial statements
present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position
of Safeway Inc. and subsidiaries as of January 1, 2005 and
January 3, 2004, and the results of their operations and their
cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended
January 1, 2005, in conformity with accounting principles
generally accepted in the United States of America.
As discussed in Note B to the consolidated financial
statements, in fiscal 2002, the Company changed its method
of accounting for goodwill and other intangible assets to
conform to Statement of Financial Accounting Standards
No. 142, “Goodwill and Other Intangible Assets.”
We have also audited, in accordance with the standards
of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United
States), the effectiveness of the Company’s internal control
over financial reporting as of January 1, 2005, based on the
criteria established in Internal Control– Integrated Framework
issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the
Treadway Commission, and our report dated March 15, 2005
expressed an unqualified opinion on management’s
assessment of the effectiveness of the Company’s internal
control over financial reporting and an unqualified opinion
on the effectiveness of the Company’s internal control over
financial reporting.
San Francisco, California
March 15, 2005