Walmart should have been the one to dominate online shopping not Amazon, leading dealmaker Ralph Schlosstein told CNBC on Friday.
“Walmart should have created Amazon,” said Schlosstein, chief executive officer of Evercore Partners. “No reason in the world they didn’t, except that no board or no CEO would take 15 years of investment that was dilutive of earnings to build that huge terminal value.”
Instead, terminal value, which projects a company’s expected cash flow, is built by companies that don’t trade on earnings, Schlosstein told “Squawk Box.”
Arkansas-based Walmart is aiming for big online sales growth in fiscal 2019, which includes a major rollout of a new website with unique brand partners — all in order to fend off Amazon’s internet dominance and recent forays into new sectors, including the pharma business.
However, Walmart shares tanked 10 percent on Tuesday after the retailer’s disappointing earnings revealed slowing e-commerce growth. Walmart stock fell 2.75 percent on Wednesday before bouncing nearly 1.4 percent Thursday.
Evercore is a global independent investment banking advisory firm. Prior to running at the helm of Evercore, Schlosstein co-founded BlackRock, the world’s largest money manager that investors nearly $6.3 trillion on behalf of clients.
