We have noted that certain activist organizations may never be able to be appeased. That is life. Wal-Mart Watch is out with their criticisms against Wal-Mart (WMT-NYSE) today noting how many shortcomings the company made and how many issues remain unaddressed after the annual shareholder meeting.
The company does have an image issue. The company doesn’t want to address many or most of the issues. They are out of touch with even much of its customer base. The list can go on and on. The truth is that what was observed last week and this week before the major selling started this week is that the company doesn’t have to fix everything perfectly. It just has to do "less bad" for shareholders to get rewarded. As the company addresses some (and if they will at least note and address some other) issues, many of the fixes will fall into place. That is why shares rose sharply on Friday, and again on Monday after the round of investment firm upgrades that we expected actually came out.
We issued a 10 STEP PROGRAM for Wal-Mart to help its shareholders, and some of the issues are the same as the public image and activism issues. They might not have been aggressive as we would have liked, but it is still a start. Since we are approaching this from the stock side, the "less bad is good" stance holds true.
Frankly, Lee Scott and the entire company has a long way to go. But they are seeming to at least try to do ‘less bad" than before. If you are a shareholder, your outlook for the company is probably a tad better than it was last week. If you are a professional critic and activist, well you know you still have plenty of meat to have job secutrity for quite some time. Lee Scott may have saved his neck, but even if he did not he at least bought more time.
The verdict is still out on which company is going to do better for investors from here between target (TGT) and Wal-Mart (WMT). Costco (COST) is still winning in the retail sales as you saw by today’s same-store-sale beat, and it still has a lot of room for growth.
On the second page you can read the Wal-Mart Watch criticisms over the shortcomings from last week……..
Jon C. Ogg
June 7, 2007
Jon Ogg can be reached at [email protected]; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.
Here is the ‘start’ of the email letter that Wal-Mart Watch has sent out.
Wal-Mart’s shareholder meeting last week was a real spectacle. Itfeatured comedy from Sinbad, performances by Jennifer Lopez andAmerican Idol winner Jordin Sparks, and an interpretive dance routine.
The only thing missing was a serious discussion of Wal-Mart’s policies.
During the four-hour event, Wal-Mart devoted just three minutes to eachof the 11 shareholder proposals — many of them common sense reformsthat would have made Wal-Mart a better corporate citizen. But the Boardof Directors rejected each and every one of the proposals and persuadeda majority of shareholders to follow their lead on Friday.
Make no mistake though — the Board knows that people are fed up withits practices. Before their meeting, each member received your letter,your video, and the signatures of thousands of concerned Americans. Infact, at the informal Q&A session that followed the meeting,several shareholders asked Wal-Mart executives how they intend toaddress the company’s growing reputation problems. One shareholder evenasked about the diamond ring that Lee Scott purchased from a Wal-Martsupplier.
So far the Board has resisted your calls for change. But if we keep piling on the pressure, they’ll have to finally listen.
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