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Everything you need to know about Walmart +
What is Walmart + and is it something you need? Is it at all like Amazon Prime? We break it down.
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The claim: Walmart was sold to a Chinese firm
U.S.-China relations are not exactly at a historic high, given the recent trade war and the ongoing global pandemic that has erupted in China.
And now one Facebook poster claims that a business group bought America’s largest retailer.
“The Arkansas family Walton’s sold Walmart for $ 500 billion to a group of investors from China,” reads the January 2 report, which was widely shared. “Sorry to say I undertook my last trip to Walmart, and I hope everyone will find another place to spend your money as well.”
It ends with this little bit of reinforcement: ‘I googled it to make sure and there it was. You can see for yourself. ”
So did we. And that, of course, is nonsense.
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A number of logical problems
The investigation of this subject, as the author suggests, quickly raises a variety of red flags.
First, there is a lack of reporting on the matter.
Walmart is a big deal, and a sale of this kind is covered by every major news agency in the country. There is no such coverage.
Second, Walmart is an exchange-traded company. It cannot be ‘sold’ simply or secretly, as this post claims.
A ‘sale’ of a public company would require the buyer to buy the majority of the publicly available shares. This requires the Walton heirs to sign off, as the children of Walmart founder Sam Walton own about half of all Walmart shares. The other half is widely distributed across the market, and no single entity owns more than the approximately 5% that Vanguard owns.
Such a sale must also be reported to the SEC, which did not happen.
Third, a quick Google search shows a possible explanation for this claim – a story from a satire news site that claims the same.
Empire News published a story in 2015 in which it is said that the retail giant was sold to ‘China Investment Group’ for $ 535 billion, about the same number mentioned in this Facebook post. Of course, the group and all the stories on that site are fictional, though the Facebook comments below the Empire News story – many of them recent – have attached that many people take the report seriously.
The man who posted the Walmart sale claim on Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the US TODAY.
Our verdict: False
We consider this claim to be FALSE because it is not supported by our research. Walmart was not sold to a Chinese firm, as any thorough online search would show. The only supporting “evidence” online comes from a 6-year-old story – on a satire site.
Our sources for fact checking:
- Facebook post, January 2
- Investopedia, July 14, Top Walmart Shareholders
- Walmart, April 23, 2020 Walmart Proxy
- Northwest Arkansas Democratic Government Gazette, March 10, Waltons shares move to holding company
- Empire News (satire), January 28, 2015, Walmart sells to Chinese investment group for more than $ 500 billion
Contact Eric Litke at (414) 225-5061 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ericlitke.
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Our fact-checking work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.