Company News: Wal-Mart touts employee bonuses for first time

Wal-Mart made its annual bonus for store employees public for the first time in two decades Thursday, saying that about 80 percent of hourly workers in its stores would split more than a half-billion dollars.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is the target of union-backed critics who decry its pay and benefits. The Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer said it was making the bonuses public as a new way to honor its employees, not in response to critics.

Based on the numbers Wal-Mart released, the mathematical average payment would be $651 per worker but Wal-Mart said the individual amounts varied. It declined to provide a range or the specific level of payments, citing competition with other employers.

In the past, the bonus has been $1,000 for full-time workers and up to $500 for part-timers, according to former Wal-Mart managers who declined to be named because the information is competitive.

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Sarah Clark declined to provide individual figures but said the payments varied based on two main benchmarks: whether an employee’s store met profit and sales targets for the year and whether an employee is full-time or part-time.

Athletic footwear and apparel maker Nike Inc. said Thursday that fiscal third-quarter profit grew 8 percent, helped by higher sales in Europe and favorable currency exchange.

Earnings for the quarter ended Feb. 28 totaled $350.8 million, or $1.37 per share, versus $325.8 million, or $1.24 per share, during the same period last year.

Revenue grew 9 percent to $3.93 billion, from $3.61 billion a year ago. Currency exchange rate changes helped revenue by 3 percent.

Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected net income of $1.33 per share on revenue of $3.93 billion.

Futures orders for athletic footwear and apparel grew 9 percent to $6 billion, including a 1 percent gain from currency exchange.

A parade of Chicago Mercantile Exchange executives redoubled an all-out offensive to purchase the Chicago Board of Trade Thursday, trumpeting their rich Chicago history while lambasting an unsolicited proposal by another electronic exchange.

“A combined CME-Board of Trade offers a new and better future for all of us,” Terry Duffy, executive chairman of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc., told a standing-room crowd of Chicago Board of Trade shareholders, members and traders. “We all want this business to thrive.”