Tennis Game Leads to Career

George Billingsley probably wouldn’t be where he is today if he hadn’t had a tennis partner named Sam Walton.

Billingsley, 72, grew up in Memphis and graduated from the University of Arkansas in 1957 after a mid-college stint in the Korean War. In 1959, he married Boyce Cooper, the daughter of John A. Cooper Sr., the founder of Cooper Communities.

Billingsley began working for John A. Cooper immediately after college. By 1965, he was a vice president in the company and was dispatched to Bella Vista to sell lots for a new planned community there.

By the late 1980s, Billingsley was ready to retire and play tennis for the rest of his life. But Walton had other plans for him.

Walton, who opened the first Wal-Mart store in Rogers in 1962, had taken pride in the slogan, “Made in the U.S.A.” But Walton realized the retail world was changing.

“In 1989, Sam said the sourcing of goods and merchandise would eventually wind up in the Orient,” Billingsley said.

Walton needed someone to oversee operations in Asia, and Billingsley had a connection in Indonesia. Through a friend, Billingsley had met the family of Anthony Salim, who controlled a $20 billion Indonesian conglomerate called the Salim Group and, coincidentally, helped Jack Stephens of Little Rock purchase Worthen Bank.

But Walton wasn’t used to dealing with people so far away.

“I don’t know these people,” Walton allegedly told Billingsley. “I would like for someone to watchdog them.”

Billingsley went to work for Walton that year. He was paid for the first two years by the Salim family, which owned PREL at the time. PREL had offices in Singapore, Malaysia; Bangkok, Thailand; and Jakarta, Indonesia. Billingsley said the company needed offices in Hong Kong, China; Seoul, Korea; and Taipei, Taiwan.

Bill Fields, Wal-Mart’s head of merchandising at the time, help set up the operation. He brought in Charles Wong, who is still a partner with Billingsley.

Soon, PREL opened an office in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Then in 1991, PREL opened an office in Hong Kong, following a year later with offices in Korea and the Philippines.

“Buyers put out a list of what they need,” Billingsley said. “We would go out and find the best company to do the work at the best price in the countries we represented and had the quality and could deliver on time.”

Initially, Wal-Mart buyers would sit in on the meetings with potential vendors. Billingsley would hire locals to do the actual negotiations. Now, only locals travel to the factories for PREL.

In 1991, Billingsley and Wong spent “several million dollars” to buy PREL from the Salim family. To raise the money, he had to put his home and his wife’s family farm up for collateral so the Bank of Bentonville would make the loan. In the meantime, his partner Wong was raising money in Asia for the buyout.