Walmart has confirmed it is acquiring e-commerce site Jet.com for $3 billion in cash, and an additional $300 million of Walmart shares to be paid over time. Walmart.com will grow faster… we’ll enable the Jet brand to be even more successful… “Our customers will win”, he said.
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Walmart President and Chief Executive Doug McMillon called the acquisition “another jolt of entrepreneurial spirit being injected into Wal-Mart”. Walmart.com will stay focused on the company’s low price strategy and Jet.com will still provide a curated assortment of products.
“While it will likely be awhile before the return calculus can be assessed, Wal-Mart’s financial strength and flexibility, in tandem with its excellent liquidity, give the company plenty of time from a credit perspective to integrate and leverage the legacy Jet business”, O’Shea said.
Walmart and Jet will still maintain their distinct brands throughout the acquisition.
Ahead of Monday’s opening bell Wal-Mart’s stock is up about 0.7%, at $74.25 in a 52-week range of $56.30 to $74.35.
“We started Jet with the vision of creating a new shopping experience”, Lore said. Under Lore’s leadership, Jet.com reached $1 billion in run-rate Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) and 12 million SKUs in its first year.
Walmart is coming for the e-commerce throne, Amazon.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Wal-Mart was in talks to buy the online discount retailer.
Wal-Mart is paying $3 billion in cash for the online retailer.
Wal-Mart to buy U.S. online retailer Jet.com was posted in Business of TheNews International – https://www.thenews.com.pk on August 09, 2016 and was last updated on August 09, 2016.
At the time, Jet.com owners made the bold prediction that it would challenge Jeff Bezos’ online leader Amazon.
Since its launch, Jet’s business has grown dramatically, adding more than 400,000 new customers every month and processing an average of 25,000 orders per day.
The startup’s CEO, Marc Lore, isn’t new to building businesses that get snapped up by bigger rivals: he sold Diapers.com to Amazon in 2010 for more than $500 million.
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Wal-Mart’s shares were up 0.7 pct at $74.25 in light premarket trading on Monday.
