It’s a great week to be a Walton. Walmart’s three siblings have entered the 12-figure-fortune club after the retailer’s share price increased significantly.
Sam Walton started the corporation, which has been ranked at the top of the Fortune 500 for almost a decade. His three children are Rob, Jim, and Alice.
Walmart, founded in 1945, is the world’s largest retailer, with two family holding corporations each owning half.
Alice, 74, co-manages one of these two firms, Walton Enterprises, which contributes to her net worth of $101 billion.
Alice, a centi-billionaire, is the world’s richest woman, ranking 18th on the Bloomberg Billionaires list.
However, she is not the first woman to earn the status of centi-billionaire.
Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, the heiress of L’Oreal, was previously valued at $101 billion but now has a net worth of $88.2 billion.
Alice’s fortune has increased by $30.8 billion this year alone.
Alice is not the only Walton on the Billionaires Index.Her siblings, Jim (76) and Rob (79), are ranked 16th and 17th, respectively.
Jim was the first of the three to break into the $100 billion club, with his fortune rising to $101 billion in the second week of September. At the time of writing, his fortune was worth $104 billion.
Rob also became a centibillionaire that week, with a net worth of $102 billion.
The siblings have now joined an exclusive group of 18 individuals worth more than $100 billion.Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Meta, lead the pack.
While Alice is the richest lady on the list, a few other heiresses are listed further down. Aside from Bettencourt Meyers, Julia Flesher Koch and her family are worth $76.8 billion.
Flesher Koch is the widow of David Koch, a former co-owner of the global business Koch.
The list also includes Melinda French Gates, ex-wife of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, and MacKenzie Scott, who was previously married to Jeff Bezos.
Walmart’s growth
Retailing has been volatile throughout the American economy, with supply chains disrupted and consumers constrained.
However, Walmart has delivered for stockholders and increased its market share.
In its Q2 earnings call in August, the firm reported revenue of $169.3 billion, a 4.8% increase from the same period last year.
“We continue to gain market share, including in general merchandise, and transaction counts and unit volume are up across markets,” CEO Douglas McMillon stated on the results call. “Food sales remain high, and it is good to see gains in general merchandise. And our US health and wellness business in Walmart and Sam’s Club, which is predominantly driven by GLP-1 medicine sales, is adding to our high comp sales.
“So far, we aren’t experiencing a weaker consumer overall.”
The positive outlook has increased shareholder value, benefiting the Walton family. Walmart shares were trading at $81 as of this writing, up 53% year to date.
Bettencourt Meyers’ assets are declining, while L’Oreal’s share price has fallen 11% year to date to $395.
L’Oreal’s balance sheet is not bad, although it is affected by declining revenues in specific regions.
In July, L’Oreal announced sales of €22.12 billion (roughly $25 billion), a 7.5% increase.
L’Oréal CEO Nicolas Hieronimus stated: “Our continued strong momentum in emerging markets, Europe and North America allowed us to more than offset the depressed beauty market in mainland China and the unfavorable comparative in travel retail.”