Leaked Wal-Mart Emails Reveal 'Total Disaster' With February Sales
A series of leaked email exchanges between executives at Wal-Mart suggest that the sales for February are disastrous.
The emails were dated on Feb. 12 and discuss the rough sales situation for the mega-retailer which caused an internal panic with the unflattering terms used by the worried executives.
Jerry Murray, Wal-Mart vice president of finance and logistics, discussed this quarter's numbers with negative sentiment.
"In case you haven't seen a sales report these days, February MTD [month-to-date] sales are a total disaster," Murray wrote, according to USA Today. "The worst start to a month I have seen in my [roughly] seven years with the company."
Bloomberg also reported an email from Feb. 1 sent by Cameron Geiger, senior vice president of Wal-Mart U.S. replenishment, who was apprehensive about the poor figures at the beginning of the month.
"Have you ever had one of those weeks where your best- prepared plans weren't good enough to accomplish everything you set out to do?" Geiger wrote. "Well, we just had one of those weeks here at Walmart U.S. Where are all the customers? And where's their money?"
One of the possible explanations that the company gave for the declining sales for the month was the recent payroll tax hike which cut some of the disposable income for shoppers, according to ABC News.
The emails were revealed shortly before the company is expected to report its fourth-quarter results on Feb. 21.
Wal-Mart responded to the leak by suggesting the email messages were taken out of context.
A spokesperson for the company was quoted by The Daily Telegraph stating: "As with any organization, we often see internal communications that are not entirely accurate, that lack the proper context and represent individual opinions."
The leaked Wal-Mart emails may be the reason that shares of the company's stock dropped 2.2 percent on Friday, according to CNBC.
