Walton family heirs reduce stock holdings
by March 5, 2017 5:14 pm 2,152 views
(from left) Jim Walton, Alice Walton and Rob Walton at the 2016 Wal-Mart shareholders meeting.
In recent weeks heirs of Wal-Mart Stores founders Helen and Sam Walton sold off more than 12.585 million shares of the retail stock with a market value in excess of $898.535 million, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Alice Walton and her brothers Jim and Rob are trustees of the Walton Family Holdings Trust, the largest shareholder of Wal-Mart Stores. In April 2015, the Walton family said it would regularly reduce holdings to roughly 50% of outstanding shares. The most recent ownership filings indicate that balance is about 51%.
The Walton Family Holding Trust still holds 134,205,978 shares of Wal-Mart’s outstanding shares. The family’s stock holdings in the the trust are worth an estimated $9.394 billion. Outside the trust the heirs each individually own and control the following number of shares:
• Alice Walton: 6,748,580 shares worth $472.603 million;
• Jim Walton: 10,507,127 shares worth $735.709 million; and
• Rob Walton: 3,342,653 shares worth $234.052 million.
The filings also indicated 1,715,000 shares were removed from the family’s trust holdings on Feb. 28 and transferred to undisclosed beneficiaries of the trust.
The Walton family ranked the wealthiest in the nation for the past three yards according to Forbes. In 2016, Forbes estimated the Walton’s overall fortune was worth an estimated $130 billion. Since Jan. 1 the Walton’s trust holdings were valued as high as $10.168 billion and as low as $9.223 billion. For every $1 the share price increases the family’s trust value rises $1.34 million. That same value is lost if the share price falls by $1.