Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. gives us an amazing anomaly in the world of business, for the Waltons, the family which owns the retail chain, is the richest family in the world. So much so, that the Walton family tree has produced a total of - count them - 18 billionaires! Currently, six of the surviving members of the family are on the Forbes top world billionaires list.
It is difficult to get a handle on the scope of the Walton family fortune without resorting to comparisons. Their fortune is greater than that of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett's combined. The family's total holdings equals the Gross Domestic Product of the nation of Singapore. The dividend stream from their combined holdings alone produces approximately a billion dollars annually. They are compared to the Rockefeller family, whose riches they equal after adjusting for inflation, and in terms of raw dollars are far richer. If they simply raked one million dollars every day into the fireplace and burned it, they would still never go broke. You get the picture.
The corporation they own, Walmart, is the world's largest public corporation, the largest private employer in the world, and the largest grocery retailer in the United States. Employees of Walmart Stores, Inc., amounted to 2.1 million people worldwide in 2008. For comparison, the country of Kosovo had a population of 2.1 million people in the same year. The immense size of the company requires the Walton family to tread carefully when they make decisions, since every move they make actually has a measurable impact on the United States economy.
The surviving members of the family who are also on the Forbes top billionaires' list are currently: Jim Walton, Christy Walton, and S. Robson Walton, with $19.2 billion each, Alice Walton at $19.0 billion even, and from the James Lawrence “Bud” branch of the family tree, Ann Walton-Kroenke with $2.8 billion and Nancy Walton-Laurie with $2.4 billion. However, one must remember not to think of their fortunes individually, since the entire family acts in consensus. They are usually tied for the high 20's and low 30's in the Forbes list of richest people, so it's hardly worth trying to allocate each dime separately.
Of the second-generation Waltons, S. Robson watches the business the most, not so much managing Walmart directly as consulting for the people who do manage it; the current CEO and president is H. Lee Scott. Jim Walton is the "family banker", tending to the family side of the empire and all of its subsidiary holdings. John and Alice Walton spend most of their time working for the various causes and charities they support - John with education reform and Alice with children's charities and environmental causes.
How did it all start? Sam Walton, at the age of 22, got a job working for a J.C.Penny store in Des Moines, Iowa. Five years later, he decided to work for a chain of stores called Ben Franklin and got offered his own franchise with one of them. He just kept getting more and more successful in retail, and opened the first Wal-mart in Bentonville, Arkansas, in 1962. The company incorporated in 1969. And they just kept growing!
The Walton family is obviously enjoying their status, and the family seems to get along very well with each other while managing the corporate empire. Walmart still has plans for the future yet, since they are still expanding and opening new stores around the world. The only place they've lost ground is Germany, where the Aldi chain is beating them. They have chosen to offer franchises in India, since Indian law prevents them from owning stores in that country directly. Currently, they have 2,980 stores in 14 countries outside the United States and 2,447 Wal-Mart Supercenters within the United States.