Directory Inc.

About

Walmart Inc. (formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets, discount department stores, and grocery stores, headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas. The company was founded by Sam Walton in 1962 and incorporated on October 31, 1969. It also owns and operates Sam’s Club retail warehouses. As of July 31, 2019, Walmart has 11,389 stores and clubs in 27 countries, operating under 55 different names. The company operates under the name Walmart in the United States and Canada, as Walmart de México y Centroamérica in Mexico and Central America, as Asda in the United Kingdom, as the Seiyu Group in Japan, and as Best Price in India. It has wholly owned operations in Argentina, Chile, Canada, and South Africa. Since August 2018, Walmart only holds a minority stake in Walmart Brasil, which was renamed Grupo Big in August 2019, with 20 percent of the company’s shares, and private equity firm Advent International holding 80 percent ownership of the company. Walmart is the world’s largest company by revenue, with US $514.405 billion, according to Fortune Global 500 list in 2019. It is also the largest private employer in the world with 2.2 million employees. It is a publicly traded family-owned business, as the company is controlled by the Walton family. Sam Walton’s heirs own over 50 percent of Walmart through their holding company Walton Enterprises and through their individual holdings. Walmart was the largest U.S. grocery retailer in 2019, and 65 percent of Walmart’s US $510.329 billion sales came from U.S. operations. Walmart was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1972. By 1988, it was the most profitable retailer in the U.S., and it had become the largest in terms of revenue by October 1989. The company originally was geographically limited to the South and lower Midwest, but it had stores from coast to coast by the early 1990s. Sam’s Club opened in New Jersey in November 1989 and the first California outlet opened in Lancaster, California in July 1990. A Walmart in York, Pennsylvania opened in October 1990, the first main store in the Northeast. Walmart’s investments outside America have seen mixed results. Its operations and subsidiaries in the United Kingdom, Central America, South America and China are highly successful, whereas its ventures failed in Germany and South Korea.