Wal-Mart reorganization designed to increase efficiency

New York City Wal-Mart was lifted to buy on Friday by Goldman Sachs, after announcing plans to reorganize its business. The changes were announced in a series of memos posted on the company’s Web site from president and CEO Mike Duke, vice chairman Eduardo Castro-Wright, chief merchandising officer John Fleming and COO Bill Simon.

On Thursday, Wal-Mart said that it is consolidating some of its U.S. operations in an effort to increase efficiency. The discounter will combine its U.S. realty division -- Walmart Realty -- with store operations and logistics. In addition, the company plans to introduce a new field reporting structure that includes three geographic business units in the west, the south and the north. The company’s previous structure consisted of five major regions.

“This move will help facilitate our growth as we seek to enter new markets and develop new segments across the U.S. and will drive efficiency by allowing us to better leverage our resources,” Castro-Wright said. “We are also building a structure that aligns the store planning team with the customer experience team that currently is part of merchandising. This will also support our efforts to accelerate our speed to market with new formats.”

Wal-Mart is also creating a new division called Global.com to oversee its e-commerce business.

The restructuring will result in a fourth-quarter charge of 4 cents a share.

Wal-Mart also signed a sourcing deal with Li & Fung. Through the agreement, Wal-Mart could purchase $2 billion in goods through the firm in the first year.