Rob, Jim and Alice are the three children of Sam Waltonwho leads the company at the forefront of Fortune 500– a position it has held for more than a decade.
Founded in 1945, Walmart is the world’s largest retailer and is owned equally by two family holding companies.
Alice, 74, is co-CEO of one of these two organizations – Walton Enterprises – contributing to her net worth of $101 billion.
As a hundred-billionaire, Alice is now the richest woman in the world and ranks 18th on the Bloomberg Billionaires List.
However, she is not the first woman to ever achieve the title of a hundred-billionaire.
This summer L’Oreal heiress Francoise Bettencourt Meyers was valued at $101 billion, but her wealth has since dropped to $88.2 billion.
In contrast, Alice’s wealth has grown by $30.8 billion this year alone.
Alice is also not the only Walton on the billionaire index. Her siblings Jim, 76, and Rob, 79, take places 16 and 17.
Jim was the first of the trio to break the $100 billion club when his wealth rose to $101 billion in the second week of September. At the time of writing, his net worth was estimated at $104 billion.
This week, Rob also joined the group of centi-billionaires and now has a net worth of $102 billion.
The siblings now belong to an exclusive club of 18 people whose fortune is estimated at over $100 billion. The pack is led by Tesla boss Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg.
While Alice tops the list as the richest woman, a handful of other heiresses are also included further down. In addition to Bettencourt Meyers, Julia Flesher Koch and her family are estimated to be worth $76.8 billion.
Flesher Koch is the widow of David Koch, the former co-owner of the multinational conglomerate Koch Industries.
Elsewhere on the list is Melinda French Gates, the ex-wife of Microsoft Co-founder Bill Gates and MacKenzie Scott, who was previously married to Jeff Bezos.
Walmart’s growth
Across the U.S. economy, retail was turmoil, supply chains were disrupted, and consumers were under pressure.
However, Walmart has delivered for shareholders and gained greater market share.
In his Conference call on the second quarter results In August, the group recorded sales of $169.3 billion, an increase of 4.8% over the same period last year.
“We continue to gain market share, including in general merchandise, and transaction count and unit volume are increasing in all markets,” CEO Douglas McMillon said on the earnings call. “Groceries continue to be strong and it is encouraging to see improvements in general merchandise. And our U.S. health and wellness business at Walmart and Sam’s Club is contributing to our strong comparable sales, primarily due to sales of GLP-1 medicines.”
“So far, we have not seen an overall weaker consumer sentiment.”
The optimistic outlook has given shareholders a boost – and with it the Walton family’s fortunes. At the time of writing, Walmart’s share price was $81 – up 53% year to date.
Conversely, Bettencourt Meyers’ assets are shrinking and L’Oréal’s share price has fallen 11% since the beginning of the year to $395.
L’Oréal’s balance sheet is not bad, but it suffers from declining sales in certain regions.
In July L’Oreal reported sales of 22.12 billion euros (approximately 25 billion US dollars), an increase of 7.5 percent.
Nicolas Hieronimus, CEO of L’Oréal, said: “Our continued strong momentum in emerging markets, as well as in Europe and North America, enabled us to more than offset the declining cosmetics market in mainland China and the unfavourable comparable conditions in travel retail.”