By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM and MICHAEL BARBARO
The New York Times
Published: June 7, 2008
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — For Wal-Mart, it was a day for smiling faces.
After three tumultuous years, filled with embarrassing public relations dustups and sluggish business performance, the nation’s largest retailer Friday publicly relished a turnaround on both fronts at its annual shareholder meeting.
“All of this success feels good, doesn’t it?” said H. Lee Scott, Wal-Mart’s chief executive. “You bet it does.”
The unofficial theme of the meeting was “proud” but the tone might be better described as “phew.”
Not long ago, the company’s monthly sales refused to budge and so did its share price. Wal-Mart, it was said, had hit a wall.
But the slowing economy has proven a boon to Wal-Mart, and its sales have surged, even as rivals, like Target and J.C. Penney, have sputtered. And the chain’s stock price, which lingered around $45 a year ago, is trading at $58 a share.
Like its stock price, Wal-Mart’s image has surged. The chain has won over longtime critics by expanding its employee health care plans and making sweeping commitments to the environment.
Even the company’s generally reclusive founding family joined the celebration Friday. For the first time in at least a decade, all the living children of Sam Walton — Rob, Alice and Jim — stood on a stage together, extolling the virtues of the new and improved retailer.
“We are using the opportunity of our size to be a force for positive change in the world,” said Rob S. Walton, one of Sam Walton’s children and the chairman of Wal-Mart.
“You’re going to love me,” the entertainer Jennifer Hudson sang in a performance to shareholders here and it almost seemed like a boast to the shareholders, investors and reporters assembled here, not far from Wal-Mart’s headquarters.
Wal-Mart, once under fire, has turned a corner.
When the new Wal-Mart Supercenter opened in Columbia earlier this fall, it provided job opportunities for more than 200 people...
