Our CNBC Interview: Lee Scott Needs to Leave Wal-Mart (WMT)

Our own Jon Ogg made another guest appearance today on CNBC.  Today’s discussion was with CNBC’s Bill Griffeth and the other interviewee was Maggie Gilliam of Gilliam & Co. (her website link here).  Today’s interview was on the status of Wal-Mart’s (WMT-NYSE) Lee Scott, and whether he should stay at the helm of the company or if he should go.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=257412729
She and Jon may be on different sides of the spectrum on the topic in theory, but if you watch the interview you can see the problems in trying to find all the great things about Lee Scott as remaining CEO of the company.  She is an analyst that covers many large retail issues.  In a three to four minute interview, no one can get all of their points across and it is likely true both ways.

After conducting more and more reviews of the stock and the CEO, there is no change in the position that Lee Scott would best serve the company simply by saying he is ready to let new leadership take the company forward.

Once again, you can link to the CNBC video interview online on the CNBC site.  The perspective of this interview was solely from the investment side, and not just from the consumer activist side.  As long as Wal-Mart is the #1 retailer in the US, they are going to have critics.  What is at stake is that THIS CEO is not able to help the company shed the image of some of the problems.  We noted a couple weeks ago that trying to tie Wal-Mart to terrorism sure felt like someone was taking an extreme point of view, and we noted that this was probably above and beyond anything fair.

We’ll see if this happens before the end of the year or not.  After the last pay package paid to Mr. Scott, it sure doesn’t feel like the company is leaning this way.  The stock is "cheap" and for a reason.  Our position is that a new corporate leader could better man the helm, and after 5-years WMT shareholders would probably not fight comment too much.   Wal-Mart was just this morning named #1 on the Fortune 500 list, but that is a size metric that has no real bearing or relation to current shareholders. 

Jon Ogg can be reached at [email protected]; he does not own securities in the companies he covers; neither he nor the company have been compensated in any manner to portray Wal-Mart in any particular manner.