Retail watcher talks decades of Wal-Mart coverage, picnics and float trips

The Wal-Mart shareholders meeting set for Friday (June 5) will find a high-profile gaggle of celebrities more than 14,000 people packed into Bud Walton Arena on the University of Arkansas campus. Walter Loeb remembers when the meeting was a short affair held in the dining hall of the corporate offices. The next day they might have a picnic at the home of Helen and Sam Walton.

From simple traditions to star-studded spectacles, Loeb, 90, remembers the four decades he’s followed retail giant Wal-Mart Stores. Loeb was a Wall Street analyst at Morgan Stanley when Wal-Mart shares first went public in 1970. Today, the New Yorker is a contributor to Forbes and founder of Loeb & Associates, a retail consulting firm in Manhattan.

“I am very fond of Wal-Mart and all of its history. I met Sam Walton when I was covering retail at Morgan Stanley. I admired his attention to detail and the fact that people meant so much to him,” Loeb said in a phone interview with The City Wire.

Loeb said wherever he saw Sam, the retail magnet was usually more concerned with getting to know the people he met and their personal stories that he was about sharing his own successes.

“This was a man who worked every single day, studying all that he could from his competitors and other experts and then adapting those best ideas for his own stores,” Loeb said.

SAM THE SHOWMAN
His first recollection of the shareholder meeting was a simple event held in the dining hall of the corporate offices. He said there was always some fun festivities planned for the following day and usually a picnic at the family home.

“Sam was very aware of Wall Street and he worked quite hard to get analysts down to Arkansas in the first few years after the company went public. Some of the memorable events included overnight float trips or fishing trips to Bull Shoals,” Loeb recalled.

He said to take a group of New Yorkers who had never been on a float in their lives was a gutsy move. But he remembers that there were plenty of experts on hand for the New York novices. Loeb remember those early years as “family affairs” with lots camaraderie.

“His wife Helen and their daughter Alice usually took part in the festivities that lasted a couple of days,” he added.

He remembers Walton as a “showman” but said underneath there was skilled merchant who understood the need for a fast distribution system and, more importantly, a man who understood people, especially his customers and his employees.

“Everyone remembers the time Sam Walton danced the hula on Wall Street in a grass skirt when the company’s sales growth surpassed 8%. In doing that, he endeared  himself to analysts. He was a lot of fun and made a big impression on us back then,” Loeb shared. (See that video at the end of this story.)

PROUD OF GROWTH
Since Walton’s death in April 1992, the company has grown exponentially. The sales reported in the 1993 Annual Report were $55 billion growing from $43.8 million in 1992. The company’s international segment consisted of one joint venture partnership in Mexico with four stores and three clubs.

Last year Wal-Mart Stores reported total sales revenue of $482.2 billion, the international segment contributed $136.16 billion which was derived from 28 countries around the globe.

“I don’t think Sam Walton would recognize Wal-Mart today. But I do think he would be proud of the growth and achievement of strength Wal-Mart has reached in the retail industry. It’s kind of ironic that the retail federation shunned him years ago. They saw him as an outsider and did not extend membership to him, instead favoring some of his competitors. It’s a shame because his leadership would have been good for everyone in the industry, including his competitors,” Loeb said.

RETRACING ROOTS
Loeb said he won’t be making the trip to Bentonville for this year’s shareholder meeting.

“It’s more show than business today. I will be watching online,” he said. “But when the executives meet in New York with analysts this fall I plan to be there. Today everything runs on a strict schedule, it’s a bureaucracy at work, very different from the personal touches that Sam Walton mastered.”

Loeb said he’s impressed with Wal-Mart Stores CEO Doug McMillon, who he says is like Sam – a merchant at heart with a charismatic demeanor and strong leadership skills.

“McMillon and his team are out and about in the stores, working to simplify the bureaucratic lines in the chain of divisional commands which is a good thing,” he said. 

Loeb said the company’s recent efforts to improve customer service and employee relations would likely get a nod of approval by Sam Walton if he could see it.