Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced that it plans to close 269 stores in the U.S. and globally. In total, the impacted stores represent less than 1% of both global square footage and revenue. As part of today's action, the company will close 154 locations in the U.S., including the company's 102 smallest format stores, Walmart Express, which had been in pilot since 2011. Walmart instead will focus on strengthening Supercenters, optimizing Neighborhood Markets, growing the e-commerce business and expanding Pickup services for customers. Also covered in the closures are 23 Neighborhood Markets, 12 Supercenters, seven stores in Puerto Rico, six discount centers, and four Sam's Clubs. Internationally, the company is following a disciplined strategy of actively managing its portfolio. Consistent with this strategy, the company is closing 115 stores outside the United States. This includes 60 recently-closed, loss-making stores in Brazil, which represents only 5% of sales in that market. The company has already been able to relocate many affected associates in Brazil to other stores. The remaining 55 stores are primarily small, loss-making stores in other Latin American markets. Walmart will disclose more detail about those actions, including the number of stores per market, after completing local associate and community outreach. The financial impact of these closures is estimated to be approximately $0.20 to $0.22 of diluted earnings per share from continuing operations, with approximately $0.19 to $0.20 expected to impact the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016. The remainder of the impact will fall into the first half of fiscal 2017. Approximately 75% of the impact relates to U.S. closings and the remaining portion involves Walmart International, with a large majority of the international impact relating to the closures in Brazil. In total, approximately 16,000 associates will be impacted by the decision, about 10,000 of them in the U.S. More than 95% of the closed stores in the U.S. are within 10 miles on average of another Walmart, and the hope is that these associates will be placed in nearby locations.

The company will continue to invest in its future, with plans to open stores worldwide in the coming fiscal year. Domestically, Walmart intends to open 50 to 60 Supercenters and 85 to 95 Neighborhood Markets in Fiscal 2017, which begins Feb. 1. In the same period, Sam's Club plans to open in seven to 10 new locations. Internationally, Walmart intends to open between 200 and 240 stores during the coming year.