Walmart Founder Sam Walton's Genius Move: Why He Never Gave His 5 Kids Company Stock
Sam Walton's estate planning is drawing attention after a Miami attorney described how the Walmart Inc.(NASDAQ:WMT) founder walled off his heirs' stake from divorce courts, avoiding the kind of splintering that wrecks family fortune.
Miami Attorney Details Walton Dynasty Protection Strategy
Jose M. Ferrer, a highly rated attorney in Miami, Florida, specializing in business litigation, international litigation and arbitration and complex commercial cases, said Walton's key move was keeping Walmart stock out of his children's personal names.
Don't Miss:
-
These five entrepreneurs are worth $223 billion – they all believe in one platform that offers a 7-9% target yield with monthly dividends
-
An EA Co-Founder Shapes This VC Backed Marketplace—Now You Can Invest in Gaming's Next Big Platform
"Sam didn’t give the shares of Walmart to any of his kids. He put them in a trust and gave his children rights in that trust," Ferrer said. "And the terms of that trust are simple. No matter what happens, how many people you marry, and how many times you get divorced, the shares don’t leave the trust. And that trust, it’s only managed by the Walton family."
"So, if you are founder and you have a family and you have kids, you have to understand that not every marriage is going to survive, that some marriages are going to break up, and that you can’t allow your children’s marriages to dissolve the company that you built," he added.
Trust Structure Keeps Walmart Stock Largely Divorce-Proof
Walton also used the family partnership Walton Enterprises and later the Walton Family Holdings Trust, keeping Walmart stock in family-controlled entities instead of as marital property, so even multiple divorces among heirs never pried core shares away. This structure meant the stock belonged to the family entities, not to individual spouses, insulating ownership when marriages fell apart.
See Also: Deloitte's #1 Fastest-Growing Software Company Lets Users Earn Money Just by Scrolling — Accredited Investors Can Still Get In at $0.50/Share.
Ferrer contrasted that with the Vanderbilts, an American family who gained prominence during the Gilded Age, whose wealth thinned over generations as ownership left the family in divorces and inheritances.
Rising Walmart Shares Supercharge Walton Family Fortunes
Today, all three surviving children, Rob, Jim and Alice Walton, are firmly in the $100 billion club, while the broader heir group, including grandson Lukas, controls nearly $440 billion in wealth, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index data.
Content Original Link:
" target="_blank">
