A Tale of Two New CEOs at Walmart and Target

At the start of this month, Target and Walmart both welcomed new CEOs to their respective corner offices. But beyond that coincidence, the two newly minted bosses are running enterprises on sharply different trajectories, CNBC noted in a recent report.

That difference is perhaps best reflected by the performances of their respective stocks.  Walmart’s shares have shot up by about 163% over the past five years, while Target’s stock has tumbled by about 40% during the same period, the news service noted.

“The retailers’ stock market performances reflect their sharp divergence in sales results.” CNBC reported. “Walmart is attracting shoppers across incomes and gaining momentum with online sales and higher-margin businesses like advertising. Target is struggling with slower sales and weaker store traffic.”

Neil Saunders, managing director and retail analyst GlobalData, told CNBC that Walmart CEO John Furner inherited a business that’s “fundamentally sound” and “on a great trajectory… In many ways, his job is to keep the ship steady and see what he can do to add to the speed.”

On the other hand, Target CEO Michael Fiddelke has to “sell the Target of the future” after four years of roughly flat annual sales, Saunders said. “What I think he’ll want to do is to inject some excitement, to say, ‘Look, I’m really excited about this role. I’m really excited about where Target could go. We are going to change things. We’re going to become a different business. We’re going to get back to what we were before.’”

Related note: for relatively recent in-depth comparison of Target vs. Walmart, with an emphasis on how they differ and how they’re alike, see this report from MMCC Invest.