Walmart (WMT) is one of the largest discount and superstore retailers in the world. The company, which was founded in 1962 by Sam Walton in Arkansas, offers a wide variety of merchandise through its traditional brick-and-mortar retail outlets as well as its growing ecommerce business.
Walmart sells a dizzying breadth of items, including apparel, housewares, small appliances, electronics, musical instruments, books, home improvement, shoes, jewelry, pharmaceutical products, automotive tools, groceries, and more. Walmart operates approximately 11,400 stores in 26 different countries.
The company's 12-month trailing net income and revenue are $8.97 billion and $600.1 billion, respectively. The company'smarket capitalizationis about $401.28 billion. But who are the company's top shareholders? We look in more detail below at the six largest shareholders of Walmart.
Key Takeaways
- Walmart is one of the world's largest retailers.
- The company was established in 1962 by Sam Walton.
- There are more than 11,400 Walmart locations across 26 different countries.
- Jim Walton, Alice Walton, and Rob Walton are the top three individual shareholders of Walmart.
- Walmart's largest institutional investors include the John T. Walton Estate Trust, Vanguard Group, and BlackRock.
Top 3 Individual Insider Shareholders
Jim C. Walton
Jim C. Walton is the youngest son of Sam Walton. He had a seat on Walmart's board of directors for more than a 10-year period. He gave up that seat in 2016 to his son Steuart, who chairs Walmart's technology and ecommerce unit.
He is the chairman of Arvest Bank, which is owned by the Walton family. The bank, which is the oldest in Arkansas and among the largest in the country, provides consumers with everyday banking services, loans, mortgages, and investment services. Arvest has more than $26 billion in assets.
Jim Walton owns about 1.298 billion shares in the company.
Alice L. Walton
Alice L. Walton is the only daughter of Walmart founder Sam Walton. She is also one of the richest women in the United States, with a net worth of $60.9 billion. She owns 1.294 billion shares in the company.
Unlike her siblings, she doesn't actually work for the company her father started. Instead, Alice Walton serves as chair of the Crystal Bridges Museum Of American Art, which she established in Bentonville, Arkansas, in 2005. The organization has works from notable artists like Andy Warhol.
She did, however, spend some time as a buyer of children's clothing for Walmart after graduating from Trinity College in the early 1970s.
An insider refers to someone in a senior management position, a member of the board of directors, as well as people or entities who own more than 10% of the company's stock. In this context, it has nothing to do with insider trading.
S. Robson Walton
S. Robson (Rob) Walton is the son of Walmart founder Sam Walton and first joined the company in 1969, seven years after it was founded. He was chair of Walmart's board of directors for 23 years from 1992 to 2015, a period during which Walmart grew from a small chain into one of the world's biggest retailers.
Before taking the chair's role, he served in various roles, including senior vice president, corporate secretary, general counsel, and vice chair. A trained lawyer, he was a partner at Conner & Winters in Tulsa, Oklahoma, before joining Walmart. He retired from the board in 2015.
Walton owns over 1.291 billion shares in Walmart. His net worth is $61.8 billion, according to Forbes.
Neither Jim Walton nor Alice Walton are directors in the company.
Top 3 Institutional Shareholders
Institutional investors hold about 33% of Walmart's total shares outstanding, which is a relatively small share compared to institutional holdings of other large-cap stocks. This relatively small share, however, can be explained by the fact that the Walton family, in some way or another, holds the majority of the company's total shares outstanding, at about 50.1%.
John T. Walton Estate Trust
According to the company's most recent proxy statement, the John T. Walton Estate Trust owns more than one billion shares in the company. The entity was incorporated in Wyoming.
The three Walton children named above—Jim, Alice, and Rob—are cotrustees for the trust. Together, these three individuals have the power to either sell and/or vote on those shares. The Walton children are also managing members of Walton Enterprises, which is the private holding company through which the Walton family manages their ownership interests in Walmart.
Vanguard Group
Vanguard Group is primarily a mutual fund and exchange-traded funds (ETF) management company with about $6.2 trillion in global assets under management (AUM). The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) is one of its largest ETFs with about $151 billion in AUM. Walmart comprises 0.62% of VOO's holdings.
As of Sept. 29, 2022, Vanguard owns roughly 130.2 million shares of Walmart. This represents about 4.9% of the total shares outstanding.
BlackRock
BlackRock provides a variety of services to investors and institutions, including investment, advisory, and risk management. The company was established in 1988 and has grown, expanding its presence in 36 countries.
Investors may know BlackRock because of its mutual funds and iShares ETFs. These products provide investors with access to the equity, fixed-income, and commodity markets. In fact, it is one of the world's largest investment management firms in the world, with more than $10 trillion in AUM as of Dec. 31, 2021.
BlackRock had about 96.6 million shares as of Sept. 29, 2022, giving it about 3.6% of the total shares outstanding.
Diversity and Inclusiveness of Walmart
As part of our effort to improve the awareness of the importance of diversity in companies, we offer investors a glimpse into the transparency of more than just who are the shareholders at Walmart. We highlight the company's commitment to diversity, inclusiveness, and social responsibility as a whole. Find out how Walmart reports the diversity of its management and workforce. The ✔ shows if Walmart discloses its data about the diversity of its board of directors, C-Suite, general management, and employees overall across a variety of markets.
