S&P 500
7,226.20
+0.01%
Dow Jones
49,494.60
-0.62%
Nasdaq 100
27,685.40
+0.66%
Russell 2000
2,804.78
-0.02%
FTSE 100
10,364.50
0.00%
Nikkei 225
59,260.50
-0.78%

Investing

Wal-Mart (WMT): Time To Leave Japan

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

Japan would appear to be a promising market for big-box retail, but not for Wal-Mart (WMT). Japan is one of the world’s largest economies and wealthiest nations, but too few people want to shop at Seiyu Ltd., Wal-Mart’s unit there.

The world’s largest retailer has just announced that it will have its sixth year of losses in Japan, a market where its has burned through over $1 billion. But, things are no better and the locals like Aeon  have it by the throat.

Seiyu is a public company, but Wal-Mart owns over 50% of its shares. It has not been able to apply its retail wizardry to fixing the Japanese companies problems. And, that is not likely to happen. The Wal-Mart formula does not work everywhere. The company has had to exit German and South Korea due to poor results. But, the WMT formula appears to work well in other markets including China and Mexico.

Time for Wal-Mart to sell it interest to the public investors in Japan or a private equity concern and move on to more fertile ground.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

Continue Reading

Douglas A. McIntyre |

Wal-Mart (WMT) Goes To Japan

Wal-Mart (WMT) is buying out the minority shareholders in Japanese supermarket unit Seiyu Ltd. Wal-Mart owns 51% of the company…
Douglas A. McIntyre |

Wal-Mart In Big Online Push In China

Walmart.com typically falls into the top 20 most visited sites in the US as measured by Comscore, just behind online e-commerce giant…
Douglas A. McIntyre |

Wal-Mart (WMT) To Move Into Russia And Eastern Europe

Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) has hired a new man to help it move into Russia and Eastern Europe. These are two…
A Plan to Kill Tobacco Advertising Worldwide
Douglas A. McIntyre |

A Plan to Kill Tobacco Advertising Worldwide

The ability to market tobacco has been challenged by one of the world's largest health organizations. If the plan works,…
Douglas A. McIntyre |

Wal-Mart (WMT): More Toy Price Cuts And Big City Dreams

Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) becomes more aggressive in soliciting new customers and undercutting rivals as each week passes. It has the balance…
Douglas A. McIntyre |

Wal-Mart Will Extend Discounts; Can Target and Amazon Follow?

In an unexpected announcement this morning, Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) said it plans to extend its holiday season discounts beyond December 25th.…
247alex |

15 Biggest Employers in the World

courtesy of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE: WMT) is the world’s largest publicly traded employer, with approximately 2.2 million employees…
Douglas A. McIntyre |

The 10 Most Profitable Companies in the World

ThinkstockIn the second quarter of this year, U.S. corporate profits totalled $1.8 trillion after taxes. Massive corporate profit is not…
6 Most Important Things in Business Today
Douglas A. McIntyre |

6 Most Important Things in Business Today

Best Buy posted a disappointing forecast, Ford said it would close plants in North America, Walmart will not hire temp…

Top Gaining Stocks

Cboe Global Markets
CBOE • Vol: 1,568,143
New Pluto Global
PSKY • Vol: 12,285,993
Seagate Technology
STX • Vol: 7,378,346
Oracle
ORCL • Vol: 26,317,675
Datadog
DDOG • Vol: 6,247,779

Top Losing Stocks

LKQ
LKQ • Vol: 4,367,433
Clorox
CLX • Vol: 13,260,523
Stryker
SYK • Vol: 4,519,455
Mohawk Industries
MHK • Vol: 1,859,865
Amgen
AMGN • Vol: 3,818,618