NEW YORK, December 29, 2025, 11:03 ET
Key points
- A Miami attorney’s account of how Walmart founder Sam Walton kept shares in family trusts is drawing fresh attention.
- Walmart shares were up about 0.4% at $112.21 in late morning trading; Benzinga said the stock is up about 24% so far in 2025.
- A separate market commentary argues Walmart has historically held up better than the broader market in downturns because shoppers trade down to low-priced essentials.
Financial commentators are revisiting how Walmart founder Sam Walton structured his family’s stake — and why some investors still pitch Walmart shares as a long-term defensive holding.
The renewed focus lands as Walmart’s stock trades around $112 and has climbed about 24% so far this year, according to Benzinga, amplifying the value of the family’s holdings.
Why it matters now: keeping shares inside family-controlled vehicles can help preserve voting control and reduce the risk of big ownership shifts that can come with divorces and inheritances, a theme highlighted in recent commentary carried by Yahoo Finance.
In a Dec. 28 Benzinga article that was also published by Yahoo Finance, Miami attorney Jose M. Ferrer said Walton’s approach centered on placing Walmart shares into a trust rather than holding them directly in his children’s names.
A trust is a legal arrangement that holds assets for beneficiaries under set rules, often making ownership less exposed to personal events such as divorce when the shares are not held outright.
Benzinga said Walton also used the family partnership Walton Enterprises and later the Walton Family Holdings Trust, keeping Walmart stock in family-controlled entities instead of treating it as marital property.
Ferrer contrasted the structure with the Vanderbilt family, which Benzinga said saw wealth thin over generations as ownership moved outside the family through divorces and inheritances.
Benzinga, citing Bloomberg Billionaires Index data, said the three surviving Walton children — Rob, Jim and Alice — are each worth more than $100 billion, while the broader group of heirs, including grandson Lukas, holds nearly $440 billion.
The stock itself is being marketed anew as a “sleep-at-night” retail name. A Motley Fool commentary republished by AOL Finance argued Walmart tends to outperform in recessions because consumers gravitate toward low prices for everyday items. The Motley Fool+1
“If we’re referring to a company that historically overperforms during a market downturn, Walmart checks the box,” wrote Stefon Walters, a contributing stock market analyst at The Motley Fool. The Motley Fool
Walters cited examples showing Walmart gained about 14% during a 2001 downturn window while the S&P 500 fell about 8%, rose about 8% during the 2007–2009 recession while the index dropped about 36%, and slipped less than 1% during the early-2020 crash while the S&P 500 fell about 20%.
He wrote that while Walmart has expanded into membership programs, advertising and e-commerce, its core remains its “brick-and-mortar” store network — physical stores — that makes it convenient for shoppers, including in rural areas. The Motley Fool
Walters also pointed to competitive dynamics: Amazon may dominate e-commerce, he wrote, but it cannot match Walmart’s physical presence for convenience and access to staples.
Benzinga said Walmart’s rally this year has been helped by e-commerce turning profitable and expanded automation, and it pointed to Walmart’s partnership with OpenAI that the company said would eventually allow customers to complete purchases within ChatGPT.
For the Walton family, the latest spotlight underscores how the same holding structures built to protect control can also concentrate the gains when the stock rises.
