As Zac Bissonnette wrote earlier, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) CEO Lee Scott seemed to vent his frustration with Wal-Mart's inability to enter the New York City market by stating "I don't care if we ever enter New York." Wow -- for a high-visibility CEO to lose his cool like that may end up in his being hammered in the press and even by his board.

It's amazing what a little candor can do these days. Scott could have said, "It's unfortunate that the shoppers and leaders of such a fine city have not accepted Wal-Mart into their community," but to actually slam one of the world's most respected cities just goes to show what arrogance Wal-Mart's leadership must have right now in the face of extreme frustration from slowing sales and constant bashing in the press.

Scott seems to be secretly under fire from his recent $22 million bonus for "meeting financial targets" to Wal-Mart's fledgling share price to the huge image problem the world's largest retailer has in its biggest market right now. Will 2007 see the end of Scott as Wal-Mart's CEO? Shareholders need to be holding Wal-Mart management accountable -- for something -- even as he gets publicly flustered and basically insults the people of NYC. Way to go, Lee.

In 1975, New York City was about to default on its bonds and then President Gerald R. Ford declined to back the city prompting the New York Daily News headline: Ford to City: Drop Dead. 32 years later, and according to the New York Times [registration required], New York is turning the back of its hand to Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT).

Wal-Mart, which failed to get approval for stores in Rego Park, Queens and Staten Island, puts itself squarely on the political football field by blaming the unions and Manhattan elitism. CEO Lee Scott's money quotes: "The glue is the unions," and, "You have people who are just better than us and don't want a Wal-Mart in their community."

Scott is staunch union opponent but he has his economic geography wrong since I think New York's elites live on the Upper East Side (UES), not Rego Park or Staten Island. But with New York riding a wave of prosperity, it's amusing to see that instead of a Republican president giving the back of his hand to a financially struggling City, it's now the Big Apple giving the Bronx cheer to red state Wal-Mart.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates, a management consulting and venture capital firm. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in Wal-Mart.

The New York Times printed some really bizarre comments from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) CEO Lee Scott yesterday in which he appeared to be venting about the company's struggles in opening stores in New York City. Here are a few of his comments:

• "I don't care if we are ever here."
• "I don't think it's worth the effort."
• "It's too hard to make money here."
• Referring to the company's struggles in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles: "The glue is the unions."
• "You have people who are just better than us and don't want a Wal-Mart in their community."

What's stunning about Lee's comments is his candor and arrogance, and it's difficult to imagine what he's hoping to accomplish here. They provide ample ammo for the anti-Big Box brigade, and the responses have already started to come. Ed Ott, executive director of the New York City Central Labor Council said, "We don't care if they're never here. We don't miss them. We have great supermarkets and great retail outlets in New York. We don't need Wal-Mart." Lee Scott has struggled to win the battle for the hearts and minds of consumers and the media and the company's stock price has also lagged during his tenure.

His petulant attacks on the city of New York are unlikely to please the company's Board of Directors and could add to the calls for his resignation.

If you're a Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.(NYSE:WMT) shareholder who has watched WMT shares sit around for the past five years without much movement, you'll be interested to know that Wal-Mart has awarded CEO Lee Scott a stock bonus worth $22 million for reaching revenue targets.

That's all well and good ---- but after glancing at the five-year stock performance chart below, Scott certainly has not had a positive effect on the price of WMT shares in that timeframe, even though Wal-Mart itself may have met revenue goals set by upper management or the board. In fact, who set those revenue goals?

Wal-Mart's board of directors has an internal compensation committee like most boards to determine the amount given to key executives in the company, and it voted almost a week ago to make the award to CEO Scott. Additionally, other executives were granted shares. Perhaps now, a better concentration on making those shares worth more than they are now is in order?

The details: Scott's regular salary and bonus for 2006 was $5.23 million, and his total compensation was $15.7 million, not counting restricted stock awards for performance. The $22 million bonus was for Wal-Mart's 2007 fiscal year revenue targets being beat.

When Prince Charles buddies up alongside Wal-Mart at the behest of "green" environmental initiatives, the critics of the world's largest retailer are probably biting their tongues at the same time.

Prince Charles, a longtime proponent of environmentally-friendly business, was asked by Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott to, um, stand alongside the retailer's green initiatives.

I find it fascinating that Wal-Mart, for all its naysayers and critics, is being bashed for "not acting fast enough" to implement green ecologically-sound procedures in its company.

Give them some time, I say. It's true that Wal-Mart could have started a long time ago on this 'green' trip, but at least it is making great strides as of late.

24/7 Wall St. generated a list of 10 public company CEOs in December where investors in the underlying companies would be better served by a new CEO. Three of these have already been axed, and that is in roughly 6 weeks. Some calls aren't actually calling for the CEOs to be fired, but a title change or strategy shift was in order. There were few outright "He's Gotta Go!" and there still are. The FIRED CEO's are first, and the others are alphabetical by company. The names are highlighted so you can see the full comments and suggestions from the original article on each, and the original comments left on Bloggingstocks are here for the 7 of the 10 that are still pending:

Dell's (NASDAQ:DELL) Kevin Rollins.
STATUS: FIRED! His name will be forgotten by Wall Street most likely and will be referred to as 'That guy that took Dell down.'

Gap Inc.'s (NYSE:GPS) Paul Pressler.
STATUS: KIA! He's done and he'll have to go in for that old Japanese executive retraining boot camp before anyone speaks to him again.

The Home Depot's(NYSE:HD) Bob Nardelli.
STATUS: FIRED! But beware, he took a huge exit-payout and only has a 1-year non-compete. He'll probably end up in private equity and his name won't quietly disappear.

Amazon.com's (NASDAQ:AMZN) Jeff Bezos. He doesn't need to go away entirely! He just needs to do a partial title change. But will anyone inside the company tell the emperor he is wearing no space suit?
STATUS: Earnings are today, but either way the company could use an add-on here. I like Bezos and this will give him the latitude needed.

Citigroup's (NYSE:C) Chuck Prince. The prince calls for Draconian measures, and maybe the prince didn't mean just THIS Prince.
STATUS: Everyone has told this prince he isn't wearing clothes and he keeps ruling and ignores this. Sally Krawchek wasn't the problem. The stock is up in hopes that he'll leave and that new management can run the beast better.

Eastman Kodak's (NYSE:EK) Antonio Perez. Maybe he's nice, but for heaven's sake get the restructuring over with and get some mojo. Bring in a digital media leader.
STATUS: The earnings have turned, but the long painful restructuring continues and the last medical imaging sale funds might not be used aggressively enough. EK would still be better under a different digital leader.

Qualcomm Inc.'s (NASDAQ:QCOM) Paul Jacobs. He isn't being sent home yet, but his dad's shoes are proving very hard to fill.
STATUS: The note here is still in the pending file and he may survive if he can keep the stock from falling and if he can keep the company's patents and contracts alive.

Sirius Satellite Radio (NASDAQ:SIRI) & XM Satellite Radio (NASDAQ:XMSR). It is a dead heat in the race, and if two companies need to merge, it's these two. There can be only one.
STATUS: Still pending, still a tie! They should just merge and get it over with. A merger wouldn't be great for consumers and competition, but would be best for investors.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s(NYSE:WMT) Lee Scott. The company is struggling under its own weight, and it needs some good PR. Getting rid of the Darth Vader of Corporate America and bringing in someone fun and likeable would be the best start.
STATUS: He's still gotta go. If he is still there at the end of this year it is because he intimidated every internal external challenger. Darth Vader wasn't a hero until the last 10 minutes of the original series after almost 6 hours of being the bad guy. Lee Scott could become a good guy if he would just leave.

Yahoo!'s (NASDAQ:YHOO) Terry Semel. Yes, when you see him leave or forced out, Yahoo! holders should be happy.
STATUS: Panama may save him, but Wall Street would rather see Semel leave. Sue Decker is better suited for the role.

A lot of these may be controversial, and there are plenty of other companies that might benefit from a new CEO. None of these attacks are personal and these are merely based on observation and analysis. The list could probably be 100 CEO's long.

Jon Ogg is a partner in 24/7 Wall St. LLC; He does not hold securities in the companies he covers. He also not been compensated to represent any of these companies in any light.

Just a few days after re-hashing Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott's suggestion to the U.S. Congress that it raise the federal minimum wage, Wal-Mart has come out and again and said that it still supports the idea of raising the minimum wage -- no surprise there. However, Wal-Mart's top Washington lobbyist was reported as saying that the world's largest retailer is actually neutral on the issue. Sigh -- ok folks, which is it? One single voice would be nice.

With CEO Lee Scott quoted like this, I have to think that Wal-Mart is not communicating as clearly as it should: "There are a number of proposals before Congress. Though we do not intend to take a position on any single piece of legislation, we believe Congress should increase the minimum wage," Scott said. Well, if Wal-Mart indeed supports an increase in the federal minimum wage, then it will have to support some kind of legislation to make that happen.

It's probably not wanting to open itself up to criticism from any angle by publicly stating that Wal-Mart supports legislation x that makes a primary argument for the raising of the minimum wage, but these signals -- to me -- are a little confusing, and slightly disheartening. If Wal-Mart truly wants an increased minimum wage in this country, it needs a solid message in this respect. Your customers, employees and shareholders are waiting.

With nearly 6.5 million shares trading hands, Wal-Mart shares closed up today to $47.81 per share, an increase of $0.18 or 0.38% per share over Tuesday's close. Wal-Mart is seeing opposition to its Chicago-area store expansion plans in the form of the "big-box ordinance" currently being noddled on within the Chicago City Council. This ordinance would require retail locations with more than 90,000 square feet to have higher wages and larger health care benefits than other retail locations -- regardless of merchant. Wal-Mart PR in Chicago believes that created undue competition in Chicago -- and he's right. This possible precedent could show its head in many other large communities across the nation if it succeeds in Chicago.

What's a retailer to do? Continue asking for the federal minimum wage to be increased, for one. Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott begged the U.S. Congress back in October of last year for this so that it could help Wal-Mart's shoppers live a little more easily -- and spend more dollars at Wal-Mart itself, perhaps.

Wal-Mart's pending advertising re-invention is making the retailer look at re-tooling its advertising and marketing image, to the tune of sending out an RFP to multiple ad vendors, including vendors with advertising specialties in the Asian, African-American and Hispanic customer segments. Wal-Mart has woken up to the fact that to continue growth, more innovative and customized marketing will need to take place beyond "blanket-type" advertising.

Meanwhile, Britain's largest food retailer, Tessco, increased its marketshare lead over Wal-Mart-owned Asda in the United Kingdom by taking 31.4% share of Britain's retail food market for the last 12 weeks leading up to June 18th. Asda, the UK arm of Wal-Mart, reached a 16.5% marketshare during the same period.

Back in October of 2005, Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott strongly suggested that the U.S. Congress review and enhance the current federal minimum wage -- currently at $5.15/hour -- so that Wal-Mart customers don't have to struggle from paycheck to paycheck to meet the basic needs of life. Many of these necessities are available to Wal-Mart customers, but even so, these same customers have a hard time both shopping at Wal-Mart and providing a roof over their families' heads, said Scott.

Wal-Mart Watch, a group that watches most of the moves the retailer makes, had this to say about Scott's comments: ""I find it disingenuous and laughable that Lee Scott makes these remarks while the company hires lobbyist such as Lee Culpepper who oppose raising the minimum wage," Sefl said. Sefl is a spokeswoman for the group.

So, the question is this: Was Scott really interested in ensuring its customers had more money to spend at his stores, or did he have genuine sympathy for the minimum-wage customer? Hard to say, and I'll leave it to you to make your own conclusion.

Today, eight months later, the federal minimum wage is being hotly debated by Washington, with Democrats pushing hard for the first minimum-wage increase in nearly a decade. Senate leaders threatened to block a congressional pay raise unless Republicans acquiesced to the hike.

 

In addition to running the fanfare of the Wal-Mart annual shareholder's meeting recently (which seemed more like a revival than a financial meeting of the world's largest retailer), just what is Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott up to these days? For one, he's saying goodbye to former Wal-Mart CEO David Glass, who is stepping down from the retailing giant's executive and stock options committees.

While Glass will remain on as a Wal-Mart director on the board, I'm not quite sure why he would leave two high-profile committees like these so soon after the annual Wal-Mart shareholder meeting? Any thoughts from WMT investors out there? I'd be interested to know what you think. As of 10:00 a.m. CST on 6-8-06, WMT shares do not seem to have moved much on the news, as shares stand at $47.36 at this time.

It's another day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor.

Those famous lines from "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood" seem to ring at least a little true for Wal-Mart this morning, as it cozies up to the neighborhoods it would like to infiltrate (ok, that's a little harsh, I admit). We'll see if any new store openings planned for 2006 lift the stagnant share price, well, anywhere. WMT opened at $45.66 this morning, up from last night's close of $45.54.

With WMT looking to sell the underlying real estate of 27 former Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores soon, this could add a little cash to its coffers for Q2 and 3Q of this year. Take that with Lee Scott's possible month-long vacation we posted about, and perhaps a new chief executive is slated sometime soon for the Bentonville brethren. Something needs to break its share funk.

The Wall Street Journal has a great career column today about the brouhaha over Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott's plan to take off the entire month of May.

The gist of the column is that the guy deserves a break after 27 years on the job and that more CEOs should take the occasional lengthy vacation to refresh and refuel. You can't argue with the benefits of a vacation for renewed vigor on the job.

Still, I can't help but wonder -- even if though the company adamantly denies it -- if there isn't more going on behind the scenes. Columnist Carol Hymowitz notes that Wall Street is currently speculating that maybe the big break is just a preamble to a longer one -- retirement or resignation.