Wal-Mart Earnings Overshadow Bribery Scandal
Matthew Weinschenk put Wal-Mart (NSYE: WMT) on his list of corporate criminals this week, since it was busted for paying bribes to local Mexican officials.
It doesn’t seem like that’s having too much of an effect on the company’s business, though.
Wal-Mart reported earnings yesterday that were $0.01 per share higher than analysts had previously estimated.
And although it missed on revenue and said that full-year profit could fall short, the company’s overall growth should only continue from here. At least, according to S&P Capital IQ’s Ian Gordon…
“Foreign currency exchange is a headwind, so that’s just been reducing their sales [but] their profit performance has been pretty good. They slowed down. They are slowing down their square footage growth in some of their markets related in part due to the bribery investigation. And also just as they try and get their ducks in a row on the operational front but we think international is doing ok. ”
Of course, now that the company should soon be selling goods online in China, opening up a vast new revenue stream, sales are certainly going to get a boost in the coming quarters.
