The Walton family continues to sell Walmart stock to keep its holding below 50% of the total stock. Last week ahead of the 3:1 stock split, Walton Family Holdings Trust sold roughly 8.82 million shares.
Transaction information was from filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on behalf of Rob, Alice and Jim Walton. The transactions were valued at $1.5 billion and represent a fraction of the Trust’s share value in excess of $177.588 billion following the recent activity. In the past three months, the Walton Family Trust has sold nearly $2.3 billion of its stock holdings as Walmart’s share price rose more than 12% this year.
The sale transactions are in line with the Walton family’s 2016 pledge to keep its holdings slightly below 50% of the company’s outstanding shares. The family’s holdings are roughly 45% of the total company shares.
Following the recent 3:1 stock split, the Walton Family Holding Trust now holds roughly 3.03 billion shares valued at roughly $180.332 billion.
Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said the stock split also is in line with founder Sam Walton’s plan. He said Sam and Helen Walton wanted all employees to participate in the upside of the company through the stock purchase program. McMillon said more than 400,000 of the 1.6 million employees own company shares.
Investing in the early years of Walmart proved to be a sound financial play. Walmart shares split 11 times between the public offering in October 1970 and the next 29 years. From 1971 through March 99 the stock split two for one 11 times. Purchasing 100 shares at the offering would have cost $1,650 before commission. Following the 11 splits, the 100 shares would have grown to 204,800 shares through March 1999. With the recent 3:1 stock split, the investment would now total 614,400 shares with a street value of $36,605 million.
Walmart shares closed Tuesday (Feb. 27) at $59.58, down 2 cents. During the past 52 weeks, the adjusted share price has ranged between $60.45 and $45.36.
Walmart is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Index and now at its lower price, it will have less impact on the average. The 30 companies that comprise the Dow also now include Amazon, which recently replaced Walgreens. Other retailers that comprise the Dow index include Home Depot, Walt Disney, Nike and Apple.
— The Walton family has sold more than $1.5 billion in Walmart stock in the past week. A 2015 statement from Walton Enterprises first announced the creation of the Walton Family Holdings Trust, with an intention of selling shares "from time to time" to offset increases in ownership.
The Walton trio have garnered more than $45 billion in total from stock sales and dividends over the years, per Bloomberg. Together with other relatives, they own more than 1.25 billion shares, or more than 45% of the company — a stake valued at over $220 billion.
A 2015 statement from the Walton family said that its members will sell shares from “time to time” to curb increases in its ownership of the retail giant. The Waltons set up the trust that same year and told Walmart that it had no set timetable for sales of company stock.
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.
"Billionaire CEOs like [Jeff] Bezos, [Mark] Zuckerberg, Jamie Dimon, and the Walton family are selling off massive amounts of their own stocks, and analysts think the CEOS may be bracing for an economic downturn," he said, adding, “An overheated stock market continues to climb to new heights as investors feed that ...
Typically, if CEOs are buying shares, it shows a confidence in the future growth potential of their company. Selling, however, implies that the shares are fully valued and it's time to get out while the getting is good.
The Walton family owns about 45% of Walmart's outstanding shares through the trust and their main investment vehicle, Walton Enterprises, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Alice, Jim and Rob Walton have a combined fortune of $274 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The Great Cashout—Jeff Bezos, Leon Black, Jamie Dimon, and the Walton family have now sold a combined $11 billion in company stock this month— some for the first time ever. High-profile CEOs, founders, and heirs are selling stock by the bucketload in the companies that made them billionaires.
Lowes Inc. is a publicly-traded company without a majority shareholder, and Walmart owns no shares in the company. Walmart does, however, own several other discount chains and brands across the US and beyond.
The bears believe Walmart's stock is historically expensive now -- it traded at less than 20 times earnings throughout most of the 2010s, and it's pricier than most of its industry peers. Target, for example, trades at just 18 times forward earnings.
The Walton Family is the richest family in the world. It owes its wealth to the Walmart company started by brothers Sam & Bud Walton in Northwest Arkansas more than six decades ago.
Sam, during one of his research work, found out that by pricing the product at $1.00, a retailer could sell 3 times the volume and the profits were much greater. This tip changed Sam Walton's idea about the retail and his life. His motto became "We Sell For Less - 20% less than the competition".
The Waltons are the richest family in America thanks to their stake in Walmart, the world's largest retailer by sales. An estimated 45% of Walmart's stock is held by the families of seven heirs of founders Sam Walton (d. 1992) and his brother Bud (d. 1995).
With a combined net worth of $226.3 billion, the three Waltons are collectively wealthier than Tesla CEO Elon Musk's $209.8 billion, according to Forbes as of Monday. When joined by the rest of the Walton clan, that wealth balloons to about $267 billion — far more than the next wealthiest family, the Mars candy heirs.
A representative of the Walton Family Foundation reviewed the report and provided the following statement to Forbes: “Since 1987, the Walton family has contributed more than $5 billion to charitable organizations and causes.
Introduction: My name is Stevie Stamm, I am a colorful, sparkling, splendid, vast, open, hilarious, tender person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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