who owns walmart

Supermarkets have become an essential part of people’s lives. Especially for the ones who are living in urban regions. People living in cities are always in a hurry. They don’t have much free time and when they do they don’t want to spend it going all around the city to get the things they want for their homes. This is the reason why supermarkets have become so popular. People don’t have to go to different places tk buy things. All they have to do is go to a supermarket and get all the things they need. You can not only buy rice but you can also buy a rice cooker. Some of these retail supermarket chains are popular all around the world. One of them is Walmart. Many people don’t know who actually owns it. This article will tell you who owns Walmart.

Before that let’s take a quick look at how it all started.

History of Walmart

It all began in 1945 when Sam Walton bought a branch of the Ben Franklin stores that belonged to the Butler brothers. Sam Walton wanted to sell goods for a lesser price compared to others in the market. Luckily, he found suppliers that will sell him goods for cheaper rates. He wanted to sell more goods so that he could make more profit. It yielded results and he saw a 45% increase in sales during the first year. This branch was generating more than $250,000 by the end of the fifth year. After his lease expired he couldn’t get a renewal for his agreement. After that, he opened a store in Bentonville and named Walton’s Five And Dime. In 1969 it was incorporated into Wal-Mart Inc. By the time the company celebrated its 25th anniversary, it was generating almost $16 billion.

Besides the retail supermarket chain, Walmart also owns a satellite network. By 1990 Walmart was generating more sales compared to any other supermarket chain in the United States. In 1995 after opening stores in every state in the United States it ventured into international markets. Walmart opened stores in Argentina and Brazil. Currently, Walmart is one of the largest retail supermarket chains in the world. It has stores in more than 27 countries with different names. The company is estimated to be generating $514 billion dollars. Another fun fact is that Walmart is the world’s largest private employer with 2.2 million employees working all over the world. Most of the company is owned by the Walton family. Walton family is the richest family in the United States. from that there are also people and institutions that own a stake in the company. 

Let’s find out who these people and institutions are. 

Nearly 30% of the company is owned by institutional investors. This may look like a lot but it is very less compared to the other large companies in the world. Most of the stock is in one way or another is owned by the Walton family as they hold 50.1% of the total shares of the company. 

Walton Enterprises LLC

Walton enterprises own more shares than anyone. It owns one billion shares which is almost 35% of the company. Walton Enterprises is a private holding company through which the Walton family members manage their operations at Walmart. In 2020 Walmart Enterprises transferred 400 million shares to Walton Family Holdings Trust which didn’t affect the number of shares owned by the Walton family in any way. 

Walton Family Holdings Trust

As mentioned earlier, in 2020 Walmart Family Holdings Trust received 400 million shares from Walmart Enterprises. This makes it the second institution that owns majority shares in the company. This is about 15% of the company’s shares. When it was formed in the year 2015 it received 194 million shares. Almost all of the shares were sold. Creating Walton Family Trust helped the Walton family in running the company more efficiently. The money generated by this organization is used for charitable purposes. 

Vanguard Group Inc

Vanguard Group Inc owns shares of many top companies in the world like Apple and Facebook. It also owns shares of Walmart. Vanguard Group Inc owns 137.6 million shares of Walmart which is nearly 5% of the total company. This company has more than 6.2 trillion in assets all over the world. Now that you know that what are the institutions that own shares of Walmart let’s look at the individual stakeholders. If you look at all that you have learned until you will easily understand that members of the Walton Family most individual shares. 

S Robson Walton

He is known as Rob Walton. Rob Walton is the son of the founder of Walmart Sam Walton. This person owns 2.6 million shares of the company who is about 0.09% of the company. He joined the company after seven years of its foundation. He has been one of the board of directors of the company for 23 years. Rob Walton has witnessed the company start as a small chain and grow into one of the biggest companies in the world. Rob Walton is also a lawyer. According to Forbes magazine, the net worth of Sam Walton is $56 billion.

Marc E Lore

Marc E Lore is the one who is responsible for the growth of Walmart’s e-commerce in the US. She has done this when she began working as a president and chief executive of the e-commerce wing of the company. She made Walmart able to compete with Amazon. Walmart bought a company called Jet.com for $3 billion dollars that were co-founded by Lore. Lore owns 1.95 million shares in the company which is nearly 0.07% of the total company.

C Douglas McMillon 

Douglas McMillon is a person who has been a part of Walmart for over 30 years. It is fascinating to know that he started to work for the company when he was a teenager. From there he went onto become the company’s CEO and president in 2014. He owns 1.2 million shares of Walmart. This is about 0.05% of the total company.

Conclusion

Walmart is right now the largest revenue-generating retail supermarket chain in the world. The coming years are definitely going to witness it increase its reach. You can look at the business model of Walmart, you can understand how it works and how it makes money.

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