Matt Nemer
Good morning, thanks for taking my questions. First I wanted to start with, it may be very preliminary, but do you have any sense for whether there could be some value in the Canada leases and leasehold improvements following the shutdown if you have any kind of a range for what kind of value might be there and attributable to Target?
John J. Mulligan, Chief Financial Officer
We do believe that there is value in those leases and we will — Target Canada will be in a process led by Lazard in about probably three weeks’ time to talk to those individuals who might have interest in those leases. I think it’s important that those leases have now become the assets of the Target Canada estate and the value that is derived from the sale of those leases as well as other assets such as the distribution centers in Canada will be used to fund liabilities that the estate is going to incur. I think overall when you step back and look at the big picture, the important thing is for Target Corporation we believe all in when all is said and done, we will have spent $500 million to $600 million of cash to exit the Target Canada business.
Matt Nemer
Okay, and then secondly, given your comments about the lull in December, it would seem that the current comp trend is above the 3% that you indicated. I’m just wondering if you can provide any comment on January comp trend. Thank you.
Brian Cornell, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Matt, as John described, we saw a very strong start to the holiday season. We are very pleased with our performance during the important Black Friday weekend. As we have now seen for multiple years, there was a slowdown in the first part of December but we were very pleased with the growth in traffic and sales leading up to Christmas and right after the Christmas holiday. We have seen continued strength in our performance as we go into January. So, as I mentioned, we still have much work ahead of us in the US but we are very pleased with the momentum and the progress we are making and we are certainly pleased with the traffic growth that we saw in our stores and the acceleration of our online business during the holiday season.
John J. Mulligan, Chief Financial Officer
The one thing I would add, Matt that we’ve talked about here. We’ve seen very strong digital channel results and importantly we know we went to free shipping during the holiday season. Post the holiday season, we’ve gone back to our standard shipping offer which is free shipping above $50 and we’ve continued to see our digital sales accelerate. So we’ve been really pleased with our performance in our digital channels throughout the whole season.
Matt Nemer
That’s great to hear. Thanks so much.
Operator
Our next questions comes from the line of Scott Mushkin.
Scott Mushkin
Hey guys, thank for taking my questions. Brian, it’s great to talk to you again. Congratulations!
Brian Cornell, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Scott, it’s good to hear your voice.
Scott Mushkin
Good decision. I know it’s a tough one and I think you guys handled the press release really well and that’s good to see. I guess what I wanted to poke at a little bit as we go forward now that this decision has been made is how should we think of the growth rate in the US business? It seems like we’re refocusing on the US. Do you think there’s a lot of opportunity for you here to reinvigorate the growth in the US business?
Brian Cornell, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Well, Scott, that’s certainly our principle focus. When we gather in March, on March 3rd, we’ll take you and others through our plans to drive growth and accelerate our performance in the US. Now as I mentioned multiple times now, as we think about our priorities and our strategies for the US, we think we have a significant opportunity and John mentioned what we’ve seen during the holidays to continue to accelerate our in-store performance, compliment that with a great mobile and online experience and really make sure that we meet the needs of the Target guests in the US no matter where or when they shop.
