Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) is an American public corporation that runs a chain
of large, discount department stores. It is the world's largest public corporation
by revenue, according to the 2008 Fortune Global 500. Founded by Sam Walton
in 1962, it was incorporated on October 31, 1969, and listed on the New York
Stock Exchange in 1972. It is the largest private employer in the world and
the fourth largest utility or commercial employer, trailing the British National
Health Service, and the Indian Railways. Wal-Mart is the largest grocery retailer
in the United States, with an estimated 20% of the retail grocery and consumables
business, as well as the largest toy seller in the U.S. It also owns and
operates the North American company of Sam's Club.
Wal-Mart operates
in Mexico as Walmex, in the UK as ASDA, and in Japan as Seiyu. It has wholly-owned
operations in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Puerto Rico, and the UK. Wal-Mart's
investments outside North America have had mixed results: its operations
in South America and China are highly successful, while it was forced to pull out
of Germany when its venture there was unsuccessful.
Sam Walton, a
businessman from Arkansas, began his retail career when he started work on June
3, 1940, at a J.C. Penney store in Des Moines, Iowa where he remained for 18
months. In 1945, he met Butler Brothers, a regional retailer that owned a chain
of variety stores called Ben Franklin and that offered him one in Newport, Arkansas. |
