Employees Focus of Wal-Mart’s Annual Meeting

Actor Hugh Jackman charmed a starstruck audience of about 14,000 Wal-Mart Stores Inc. employees at the company’s annual shareholders meeting Friday in Fayetteville.

As the host of the event that started at 7 a.m., the star of the “X-Men” film franchise and “Les Miserables” told the crowd packing the Bud Walton Arena on the University of Arkansas campus, “I’ve never been up this early in my entire life.”

Jackman sported a beard that’s a trademark of his Wolverine character in “X-Men,” which is currently shooting a sequel set to open this summer. Of the franchise’s many sequels, he quipped, “Like Wal-Mart shareholder meetings and a Kardashian wedding, it happens every year.”

Sprinkled throughout the four-hour event were crowd-pleasing performances by Kelly Clarkson, John Legend and Latin pop singer Prince Royce. Jahmene Douglas, a finalist in the UK’s version of the talent competition “X Factor,” sang with the Wal-Mart Associate Choir, and the meeting concluded with a performance by Oscar- and Grammy-winning artist Jennifer Hudson.

Also, actor Tom Cruise made an appearance to talk about the Bentonville-based retailer’s global initiatives on behalf of women and the environment.

Despite a low-key mention by board chairman Rob Walton at the start of the meeting that there may be some “disruption,” ostensibly by employees protesting outside, the proceedings went smoothly. Top Wal-Mart executives took the stage to laud the performances of the company’s various divisions and recognize outstanding employees.

They also repeatedly stressed the opportunities for advancement available for Wal-Mart’s more than 2.2 million employees worldwide.

For instance, Bill Simon, president and CEO of Walmart U.S., said the company promotes nearly 500 people every day, with about 160,000 workers promoted in 2012.

“The American dream has gone global,” he said, “and may be our greatest export.”

Wal-Mart president and CEO Mike Duke continued the theme in his closing remarks, in which he called the world’s largest retailer “a path forward and a ladder up” for both its employees and customers.

“No company provides more opportunity to more people to go from where they are to where they want to be than Wal-Mart,” Duke said.

Seventy-five percent of the company’s store management teams started as hourly workers, he said.

“When it comes to our careers, what we all have in common is that we started somewhere,” Duke said. “What matters most is that we get the chance to go as far as hard work and talent will take us.”

After Duke spoke, Walton gave the unofficial results of voting on eight proposals. All members of the board of directors were re-elected, and each of the four shareholder proposals was rejected.

These included a call for Walton to be replaced as chairman of the board by an independent director, and a request for an annual report on any recoupment of compensation from senior executives due to breach of company policy or ethics.

Official results of the voting will be made available in a news release on Monday, Walton said.