Retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and venture capital firm Accel Partners are forming
Wal-Mart.com Inc. to lure consumers to retail site Wal-Mart.com.
Financial details of the deal, announced late Thursday, were not disclosed.
Wal-Mart.com will have a separate board of directors and management team,
and will soon begin recruiting a chief executive officer and senior
management team for the new company. The Wal-Mart.com board will include Rob
Walton, chairman of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Lee Scott, vice-chairman and chief
operating officer of Wal-Mart, and James Breyer, managing partner of Accel
Partners. Wal-Mart will maintain a majority interest in the new company.
Wal-Mart, Accel and the new Wal-Mart.com management team all will have
equity positions in the new company.
The company will be located in the heart of Silicon Valley, where it wishes
to reap rewards from the area’s talent base and various new technologies.
Wal-Mart’s (WMT ).
Scott said the location will be instrumental in the company’s leap into the
e-commerce fray.
Scott also said the new relationship with Accel will add value to the recent
agreement with America Online Inc. In
December, Wal-Mart and AOL (AOL)
agreed to work together to develop a new co-branded Internet service (ISP)
as well as numerous cross-marketing initiatives. The two companies also have
agreed to increase the availability of local Internet service to American
communities that are currently without this service.
“Our primary vision is to bring offline customers to Wal-Mart.com,” said Les Copeland, Wal-Mart spokesman. “We have 100 million customers and that’s why we formed a co-branded ISP with AOL — to bring more of them online.”
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. operates more than 2,400 stores and 450 Sam’s Clubs in
the United States.