Surviving In The Market
Can Wal-mart get the magic back? In the four years since Wal-mart's founder died of bone cancer, CEO David Glass has invested billions of borrowed dollars in businesses that have earned relatively low returns. Glass, age 60, seemed to be a good choice for CEO when Sam Walton, at 69, tapped him to take over in 1988. Investors have knocked down Wal-Mart's market value by $7.7 billion since the day Sam died. Sam built it from nothing to $59.3 billion. In the past year, key executives, particularly Sam's favorites, have left behind Wal-Mart to pursue jobs elsewhere. The biggest shocker came at the end of March when Bill Fields, Glass's heir apparent, told his boss he was quitting to become CEO of Blockbuster Entertainment. Fields headed Wal-Mart's main operations and was the company's closest link to the glory days. A hometown boy born and bred in Bentonville, Arkansas, Fields was hired by Sam straight out of the University of Arkansas 24 years ago. He became a sort
Glass believes that Wal-Mart's big growth opportunity is super centers. The super centers seem to be Wal-Mart's one legitimate growth-and two big slow-growing businesses. Sam's Club, its second biggest business, is another drag on Wal-Mart stock. This division has decelerated ever since Sam died. Instead of shifting more effort toward reviving this area, in 1994, Wal-Mart bought Pace Membership Warehouses (99 stores) from K-Mart. This business has been a losing proposition from the beginning due to the fact the stores are poorly located and desperately need refurbishing. of surrogate son, and was generally considered to be Wal-Mart's star manager in operations and merchandising. Fields earned $590,000 a year to run a $68 billion business at Wal-mart. At Blockbuster, which revenues about $3.3 billion, Fields is expected to make much more. Yet, Fields insists money wasn't the issue for leaving. Field's archival, Sam's Club President Dean Sanders, quit last fall. W
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 660
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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