Bulletin: Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s Acquisition Of Jet.com Aims To Boost The Company's E-Commerce Growth; No Ratings Impact

NEW YORK (S&P Global Ratings) Aug. 8, 2016--S&P Global Ratings today noted Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s (AA/Stable/A-1+) announcement that it will acquire Jet.com for $3 billion in cash and $300 million in stock, which will be paid over time. Our ratings on the company are not affected at this time. The transaction is well within Walmart's financial resources—Wal-Mart's lease-adjusted leverage was 1.7x for the 12-months-ended April 30, 2016, and we expect that figure to remain below 2.0x over the next 12 months given ample balance sheet cash of $7.6 billion to help fund the transaction. We believe the acquisition has the potential to accelerate Wal-Mart's e-commerce growth and enhance capabilities to compete more effectively against Amazon.com through Jet.com's pricing algorithms and

...NEW YORK (S&P Global Ratings) Aug. 8, 2016--S&P Global Ratings today noted Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s (##/Stable/A-1+) announcement that it will acquire Jet.com for $3 billion in cash and $300 million in stock, which will be paid over time. Our ratings on the company are not affected at this time. The transaction is well within Walmart's financial resources--Wal-Mart's lease-adjusted leverage was 1.7x for the 12-months-ended April 30, 2016, and we expect that figure to remain below 2.0x over the next 12 months given ample balance sheet cash of $7.6 billion to help fund the transaction. We believe the acquisition has the potential to accelerate Wal-Mart's e-commerce growth and enhance capabilities to compete more effectively against Amazon.com through Jet.com's pricing algorithms and unique fulfillment approach. That said, we believe risks include successfully integrating and scaling the Jet.com business into a profitable component of Wal-Mart's e-commerce business, which remained only about...

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