Empresas Walton

Walton Enterprises LLC (WEI) es una sociedad de cartera de inversiones estadounidense con sede en Bentonville, Arkansas , que funciona como una oficina familiar para administrar el patrimonio de la familia Walton , propietaria de Walmart .

Walton Enterprises es el mayor accionista de Walmart y la oficina familiar más grande del mundo. ^{[ 3 ]}

A principios de la década de 1950, Sam Walton estaba desarrollando su negocio abriendo tiendas minoristas . Su suegro, Leland Robson , lo convenció de que debía organizar su propio negocio como una sociedad familiar. ^{[ 4 ] [ 5 ]}

En 1953, se fundó Walton Enterprises. ^{[ 5 ]} Sam, Helen y sus cuatro hijos, Rob , John , Jim y Alice, eran socios de la empresa según los documentos legales. ^{[ 5 ]} Sam y Helen poseían juntos el 20%, mientras que cada hijo poseía el 20% individualmente. ^{[ 4 ] [ 6 ]}

Según Sam, sus acciones de Walmart se invirtieron en WEI. Luego, la familia, que actúa como su junta directiva, toma decisiones por consenso. La cantidad pagada a cada persona es la misma y se acuerda. De esta manera, la familia acumuló fondos en WEI en lugar de invertirlos indiscriminadamente para vivir a todo lujo. ^{[ 4 ]}

Rob, utilizando sus conocimientos jurídicos, ayudó a organizar la propiedad de su familia en Walmart en WEI, y también realizó trabajos legales para la salida a bolsa de Walmart en octubre de 1970. ^{[ 6 ]}

En 1975, la familia acordó nombrar a Jim presidente de WEI ya que se le consideraba tan tacaño con el dinero como su padre. ^{[ 7 ] [ 4 ] [ 6 ]}

Para 1989, además de poseer 218 millones de acciones comunes de Walmart, WEI también había adquirido extensas propiedades inmobiliarias, cuatro bancos y la mitad de un quinto banco, y otros negocios diversos. ^{[ 4 ]} Ejemplos notables incluyen Arvest Bank y Llama Company . ^{[ 6 ]}

After Sam and Helen died, their ownership of WEI passed to various family charities. The charities would get a minority interest in WEI, so that the stock voting rights remained under the control of the family. By turning over ownership of 80% children so early on with the remaining going to charities, substantial gift or inheritance taxes were avoided.^[4][6]

At the end of the 1990s, there was an effort to repeal inheritance taxes. WEI paid Patton Boggs to lobby on tax matters during that time. It supported "private foundation reforms to create new incentives for charitable giving" and did not involve "the specific issue of repealing the estate tax."^[8]

In March 2020, the Walton family transferred 14% of Walmart's outstanding shares from WEI to the Walton Family Holdings Trust which was formed in April 2015.^[9] However this did not change the family's total percentage of Walmart ownership which was about half of its outstanding shares.^[10]

While the majority of each Walton family member's wealth is in WEI, they also have holdings outside it. As a result, they are not equally wealthy.^[6]

The investment arm of WEI is WIT LLC, an acronym for the Walton Investment Team. It commenced operations in 2020 a few months before WEI transferred some Walmart shares to the Walton Family Holdings Trust.^[11]

WIT held almost $5 billion in equities at the end of June 2021. Most of it was invested in low-cost exchange-traded funds (ETFs) such as the Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets and Short-Term treasury ETFs. It also holds stakes in companies such as Apollo Global Management, Snowflake Inc. and Pinduoduo.^[11]

WEI doesn't disclose much about its assets which are run via a web of trusts and companies.^[6] Tax records of private trusts showed it held stakes in hedge funds run by Tiger Global Management and Viking Global Investors.^[11]