Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (WMT): How Investors Can Capitalize on the Minimum Wage Bill

Additionally, the Government of India relaxed the Foreign Direct Investment norms, increasing the foreign institutional stake cap to 49%. As a result, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) is free to pump in capital into its joint venture with India-based Bharti Retail, which would allow rapid expansion in the country.

Besides the pending bill, Wal-Mart has also been a great company for investors. Its board believes in returning value to its shareholders, and Wal-Mart has returned $13 billion this year. Last quarter, Wal-Mart repurchased $2.9 billion worth of shares, and paid out $1.3 billion in dividends.

It still has $3.7 billion worth of repurchase authorization left. Going by the pace of its share repurchases, I estimate that Wal-Mart would exhaust its remaining $3.7 billion this quarter, which accounts to a pending purchase of around 43.6 million shares at the current market price.

Wrapping it up

But that’s not all. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) has been delivering impressive growth, and added $22 billion in sales this year. Its annual cash flows surged 18.1% in FY13, while the company enjoyed 18.2% returns on investment. I believe that the pending bill is an added bonus, and Wal-Mart’s growth momentum will continue in light of its aggressive expansion plans.

The article How Investors Can Capitalize on the Minimum Wage Bill originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Piyush Arora.

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