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Walmart Chairman Steps Down As Amazon Market Cap Breathes Down Retailer's Back
Moments ago, the biggest single employer in the US after the Federal government, with 2.2 million workers, surprised its shareholders when it announced that Rob Walton, who had served as Chairman of the Board since 1992, was stepping down (he will stay on as a director) and would be replaced with vice-Chairman Greg Penner, grandson of founder Sam and son in law of Rob, who started his career at Goldman Sachs before joining WMT as a management trainee.
From the press release:
“This transition demonstrates Walmart’s commitment to long-term succession planning and keeping high caliber, capable leaders at the head of our company,” said Walton. “Greg’s service to Walmart spans more than 15 years, and during that time he has had a significant impact, both as an associate and as a Board member the past seven years. Greg has done an outstanding job as our Vice Chairman over the past year, and he has provided strong leadership and guidance as the Chairman of our Technology and eCommerce Committee since it was formed in 2011. He brings an ideal blend of finance, technology and international business expertise – as well as a deep knowledge and love of Walmart – to this role.”
“It would be impossible to overstate Rob Walton’s impact on Walmart and how personally committed he has been over the years,” said Penner. “I’m deeply honored to follow in his footsteps and recognize the deep responsibility I have to our associates, all shareholders and the Board. I’ve admired this company since my first Saturday morning meeting more than two decades ago. I believe in its mission and the positive role it plays throughout the world. I am excited about continuing to work with our outstanding senior management team and talented Walmart associates at all levels of the company.”
Who is Penner:
Penner, 45, began his career at Goldman Sachs & Co. as an analyst specializing in corporate finance. He then joined Walmart as a management trainee and held a number of positions throughout the company, including Senior Vice President of Finance and Strategy for Walmart.com and Senior Vice President and CFO – Japan. Since 2005, he has been a general partner of investment management firm Madrone Capital Partners. Penner joined the Walmart Board of Directors in 2008. He has served as chair of the Technology and eCommerce Committee and held positions on the Global Compensation and Strategic Planning and Finance Committees. He is the son-in-law of Rob Walton.
A surprising transition, although one which may make more sense when one compares the market caps of Walmart and its biggest challenger Amazon, which despite its far shorter history, has nearly caught up to WMT.
Then again, a quick look at the comparative fundamentals shows that perhaps any fears of AMZN's imminent dethroning of America's retail king are premature.
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Oh crap....not another Goldman Sachs idiot taking the reins of yet another major corporation!!
I thought Walmart was bad before, but once this bankster idiot gets going, no telling what idiocy will ensue.
At least the vampire squids won't have to search for bottled baby's blood anymore once there is a chief squid in charge.
He's an inspiration to all of us, working his way up from management trainee without any help. A real up-by-your-own-bootstraps tale.
how much experience do you need to announce a stock buyback?
Well, he passed the test - didn't jump out of a window.
The significance of this announcement is that Walmart has run out the Sam Walton model and has no new ideas; the son-in-law is just the next family member to take over the family business.
If you are looking for similar disasters, look at the Washington Post until Bezos bought it, the WSJ until Murdock took it over, or the NY Times, now a mere hair away from selling to Carlos Slim and becoming the voice of Hispanic World.
Ultimately, it comes from too many heirs wanting to live the billionaire lifestyle. You can only cut up so many pieces of the pie, until the slices begin to get thinner with each cut.
That's the story of the NY Times: keeping family members in senior management, paying senior management salaries and bonuses, regardless of competency. Eventually the incompetence sinks the company because highly competent non-family members recognize, "It's a club, and you will never be a member." What highly competent executive wants to work for a family-bozo and never see the executive suite?
As for Walmart's market - yeah, it's not high-end. Despite the arrogance of so many here, the massive bulk of America needs their price point model to survive. Please stick your attitude up your attitude storage place.
"There but for the Grace of God" and all that . . . all of you are only one car accident, one litigation loss, one diagnosis from your doctor telling you that you have cancer, one anything that damages or eliminates your current revenue generation capacity, and you'll by thanking God for Walmart's "Always Low Prices" too.
As for Amazon, you can only play the loss game for so long. Sooner or later, investors want profits. How Bezos will continue his scam once the market dives, and investors are desperate to get money into their pockets, will no doubt be written up as a Harvard Business School Case Study.
Back to WMT, demise will arise, and all those Walmart heirs will eat poop.
-30
Freaking Amazon market cap supported by silly-stupid stock valuation. God forbid Amazon ever stops being run as a non-profit and actually tries to make money. Guess what? They instantly lose market share because they won't have a price advantage any more.
Investors are betting on future profits that will not materialize.
I must admit I don't get Amazon - yet at the same time I spend tons of money with them because I get a very wide selection and can often get what I want with zero shipping. And being as I live in the middle of no where with limited local selection at significant mark up, I will continue to spend a ton of money with them.
That said, I still don't get why they can't make a fucking profit! All they have to do is charge a bit more ... but it seems zero profit is almost like a goal for their management team...
Regards,
Cooter
That's because it IS their goal. Bezos is grabbing market share at the expense of profit.
The "story" goes, once they are big enough, they'll flip the profit switch and start turning big chunks of those revenues into PROFIT. Just not yet. They need to eat WalMart first.
The problem comes when they decide to flip the profit switch. Their prices won't be as competitive as they were before, the revenues will start to drag and there just won't be as much profit as everyone thinks there will be.
It's still JUST A RETAIL OUTFIT and it will always play by retail rules.
Well if Wal Mart is forced to raise it's wages, may give Amazon a chance to start to raise prices while still beating them.
Wal Mart has a huge amount of stores very close to each to other. I bet they start to close a lot of stores in the near future and may try to compete with Amazon online in a much bigger way.
That's true to a certain extent. Amazon doesn't have (or need) nearly as many employees as WalMart per dollar sold. WalMart has bigger buying leverage than Amazon right now, which offsets that argument so some extent. That's why Amazon is running sans profit until they can get big enough to reach that level of pricing leverage.
But, as you say, WalMart isn't going to sit there and just keep being beaten endlessly over the head without taking their own swings at the online world.
Go check out WalMart's online site if you have a minute. It's definitely not to Amazon's level, but it's a lot better than it used to be.
I often use WalMarts online store with the "ship to store" option. You can order pretty much anything you want and have it shipped to the store free of charge. You then drive to the store and pick it up when they email you and tell you it's been delivered. It's one way to not pay shipping when even Amazon charges shipping on an item.
Walmart is just a crappy grocery store...the dollar stores have nearly the same inventory as WM in a smaller, more local box. What WM does do is cater to the lower 1/2 of the population.
But the Amazon model will only work in its current form. If it 'eats' WM and becomes the king and raises its margins, then the next guy will step in with the Amazon model and will eat Amazon...I'm certain it will be overly valued on future earnings also and never really make a return to justify its stock price (which is about the same as 95% of all stocks in the market now). It is all just financial engineering based on the .fed.
But I do love me some Amazon and use it quite frequently too for special purposes...and free shipping.
I've been waiting for the right moment to say this: Dollar Store is my new Walmart.
The other thing they have as well is they can pick up and move. As states take action on the minium wage Wal Mart will get hurt due to not being able to just leave.
Wal Mart's online isn't terrible. I bet in the future one of the ways they help to lower labour needs is to move more to a model of a just having people order then be told when they can come pick it up. If they could just become large grocery stores with a shipping department that can get any item at Wal Mart's low prices, I bet they could cut labour by a very large amount.
If you've ever seen an Amazon warehouse/shipping center, you know it would cost them a million times more to move one of them than it does for WalMart to shutter and move one of their stores. But your point is well taken.
Yes, we're definitely on the fire everybody trend. Exactly who will have the money to buy goods at these worker less robotic lean and mean establishments? Gubbermint just gonna send out checks to everyone? Everybody knows that cannot work for long.
Sending the jobs overseas and firing everybody is what got us in this mess. We're already printing up a storm to cover the loss of revenue. Companies buying back stock to cover for loss of sales.
Absolutely, incredibly insane.
I buy stuff from them now and again, but I have started to use them as a research tool. I go there and use the ratings to find the product I want and then I usually find it for less on e-bay. The one thing I have been waiting for is for the manufacturers to just ship directly to my house. What are they waiting for? The shit could roll off the production line and get labelled with my name and address and dumped in the outgoing pile rather than stacked in a warehouse.
I do the same Cooter. I buy almost everything I can through Amazon primarily because of inventory issues at Walmart or other stores.
I used to make a monthly stop a Walmart for a long list of basic sundries but a few years ago it became a waste of time when I could find only part of what I needed. It because far easier to order it all on Amazon and with free shipping, very similar in price.
Amazon is Aladdin's Cave however. Their sophisticated analysis of your shopping habits makes our local casino look penny ante. Mindless impulsive clicking on things purposefully shown to attract you can destroy your budget. I fight back by leaving my impulse selections in my shopping cart for months to taunt their algorithms. ;-)
Miffed;-)
If you set your browser to delete cookies (or delete them manually), they generally don't know who you are until you login. I usually build a list of links or specific product names over a period of time until I get around to buying (averages once a month).
The wife buys specific foods there now, such as raw cashews or sticky rice, due to price/quality, which is crazy because the stuff isn't light. For example, with raw cashews she makes Rosemary roasted Cashshews (yum!):
They come out soft like cookies (and get hard again when they cool). Just awesome out of the oven. I learned about this style from Indian coworkers in years past (they have many styles of spice blends - extremely varied) and often times you just can't find stuff like this locally.
Anyway, back on topic, I have noticed prices change sometimes though, so you have to watch them. I don't think they are as agressive with price changes/etc as before, but there has been many times I got to the shopping cart and was like "WTF, I am not paying for that" LOL!
Regards,
Cooter
Thanks! It sounds wonderful. I love spicy food and I've been playing with some Paleo recipes for energy bars while I hike. Mostly nuts, coconut, a little honey and dried fruit. Certainly cheaper and more healthful doing it yourself. I found someone who cooks down sea salt with herbs and citrus and make incredibly flavored salts. She makes her own smoked paprika and chipotle powers too. I'm a flavor junky! Everyone else seems to be satisfied with McD bland.
I must admit, the comments and ratings on Amazon really do help. I've been plagued with dry eyes at the lab because of the god awful ventilation and a reviewer on Amazon suggested I try something that really helped. Sometimes I can't believe the effort people go do this. I once asked a question about a tea pot I was considering and got 25 answers in a few hours!
Miffed
Walmart is a .giv corp pretending to be a retailer.
Would nto be surprised if Walmart came under the direct control of FEMA/DHS.
Just like GM is a .gov corp pretending to be America's carmaker
Just like FED Ex is a .gov corp ....
etc. etc. etc.....
Won't get fooled again....or will we?
Meanwhile, floooootin...maaaaaaaan.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaZcFjEOr2s
Walmart owns the government, it's not the other way around.
The oilgarchs own the Fed. It is the banks that run the system.
Money is real, the doelar is not re'al.
Gold is the rey of light that bestows wealth, hence it is re'al.
The Star Buck wishes it lived in heaven. But gold actually is the super nova.
I know what you sayeth SoulG. Still think a few like Walton Mart are gov controlled.
Walmart, with it's multi-million daily guranteed footfalls is too juicy a target for everything from subliminals to bad food to toxic chinese shit...
WalMart is one of those "public/private partnerships" that all the cool kids in Washington DC are slobbering is the way to fix everything.
WalMart provides for half of the worker's pay, the Government provides the other half via EBT/SNAP/Welfare/Medicaid.
The number one employer in the country: the federal government.
Ladies and gentlemen, The Universal Socialist State of America.
"Would nto be surprised if Walmart came under the direct control of FEMA/DHS."
http://freepatriotpost.com/underground-us-tunnel-map-links-walmart-jade-...
<removes tin foil hat>
From this extreme to the snap card fullfillment to now illegal helping.....exactly....
Keep that hat on sleigher, it fits....
I've seen those "underground tunnel maps" before, supposedly there's a coast-to-coast network of these tunnels. I don't think that's even possible, and here's why. Check out the Seattle tunnel project that's going on right now, with state-of-the-art technology in 2015. They can't even get a machine to reliably cut two miles of tunnel without massive breakdowns and incredible cost overruns.
Look up "Alaskan Way Viaduct" and "Bertha" to find out more.
Yeah I have no idea if any of that stuff is real. There was a patent for a nuclear powered tunnel boring machine back from the 70's? 80's? Apparently there were photos of the machine as well. I don't claim that it is true. I don't know. If it is true then they could possibly have an extensive tunnel system but I am not sure about a national one.
Amazon's P/E is something to write home about.
Its something, all right.
Walmart is a defense company stock now.
Revenues coming from government black projects.
Five stores closed and converted into holding pens for humans.
I'd step down too.
This is how lost and I guess no longer give a fuck I care about this shit any more. I was SURE today would be a thousand posts regarding Greece and Euro and instead one quick blurb post and the rest of these made up employment numbers rule the day. If June 5 can't even at least stick to the script than its all made up news anyway. I hate blaming the messenger but we are all just wasting our time here.
Wait, you didn't think any of this was <gulp>...... REAL, did you?
ZH is my absolute favorite time-waster.
Greece has been a done deal for quite some time now.
The Theater managers are insisting on continuous encores while the theater empties and the lights are shut off.
Shut down Goldman Sachs. Arrest Lloyd Blankfein and the Walton Family for treason. Re-distribute their stolen wealth into a publicly owned and operated open source financial system.
Get Yer discounted CEO jumping ship! guaranteed to break in a week China crap 30% off!.. whiles supply lasts!
Walmart, the Sears & Roebuck of the 21st Century.
They're about where Sears was in 1985.
I was in a WMT a while back and the place looked like a dump. I asked a kid where their USB sticks were and he had a headset on. He just pointed the direction and kept on playing around with a display he was working on. The shelves were 1/2 empty, and the prices were nothing to write home about.
I've yet to see any real pricing advantage that WMT has. I went over to Best Buy and got them cheaper, and the service was better.
Walmart.gov
Sam Walton was a true American. His children are the OPPOSITE. They gave HUGE $$$ to get TPP passed, they gave millions to Obongo's 2008 and 2012 campaign. They hired a Mexican national to run W-M a few years back. They are SWINE, no insult to pigs meant.
I went to the local Wal-Mart the other day after not visiting it in some time. I noticed empty shelves, in fact even the "homes" for products that are high-sellers, turns out they have a Mexican woman as the new manager. I had inadvertently spoken with her when I called to inquire about a product. The phone was answered by someone jabbering on in Spanish, I said, "pardon me I only speak English", she then said "Sorry" and HUNG UP ON ME! Also there is a plethora of new Mexican hires, it seems that ALL new hires there are Mexican.
Well Wal-Mart used to sell MADE IN USA, anyone remember that ad campaign? Now it is a 3rd world toilet.
And all of the 'displaced' American workers are on SNAP, EBT, and SSI Disability....the American way, why work when you can sit at home, pop pills and get a free check.
This is going to end, and end badly. Stack accordingly. ;)
I doubt Greg was a 100 hour a week GS employee. Some doors to corner offices magically open when born into corporate royalty.
Well when they ban cash, making a profit won't matter anymore.
Making a profit hasn't hurt many companies lately, $TSLA
Are the Waltons marrying cousins?
If he is the gransdon of Sam and son in law of Rob....yuck...
You might be a redneck...if you go to family reunions to find a date.
Well, it is Arkansas.
I've seen China factory prices and Walmart retail prices on some of their stuff and itsvagood bet to say that Walmart transfer prices a whole lot if profit offshore.
Amazon is a nice service for us online shoppers and a suckers bet for investors.
Neither Amzon nor WMT can compete with ebay. I get items for $.99 shipped from China. Economically that simply cannot be possible. There is a glitch in postal regs. As long as that continues though, WMT and Amazon will tread water.
Really the only question you have to ask is is he a member of CFR, Bilderberg or the Trilateral Commision.
I predict a lot of plumbing issues will visit some WalMart stores, soon.
"Greg Penner, grandson of founder Sam and son in law of Rob (Walton)..."
This is what happens when cousins marry.