Ever wondered what it feels like to be one of the wealthiest people in a group? Well, that’s easy, yeah? Here’s another one. Have you ever wondered what it feels like to be one of the wealthiest heiresses in the world? Not many people can relate to that right? That’s it! That’s exactly how it feels to be Alice Walton, the billionaire heiress to the Walton’s Walmart empire who has not stopped making money in a very long time. We will talk about what it feels like to be Alice Walton but first, who is she? And most importantly, how did she make her net worth which amounts to about 59 thousand U.S. dollars? These and many more questions will be answered if you take time out to read this piece to the very end.

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Alice Walton: A Biography

Born on the 7th day of October 1949 in Newport, Arkansas, Alice Louise Walton is reputed to be the second richest woman in the world. She was raised in Bentonville, Arkansas alongside 3 brothers who cherished and adored her. She attended Bentonville High School and graduated in 1966 after which she proceeded to pursue her degree in economics at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. She would later graduate from Trinity University with a B.A. in economics and finance. Alice is the heiress of the Walmart fortune and as of 2016, she owned well over 11 billion dollars in Walmart shares. She now has a net worth of $59 billion, trailing just behind Francoise Bettencourt Meyers of France and immediately followed by Julia Koch on the list of the top 10 richest women in the world. Now that you know who Alice Walton is let’s not stop there, let’s take it a step further and examine all she did to amass a net worth of $59 billion and earn a spot among the world’s richest women!

It All Started With Walmart

What we have not mentioned in this piece is that Alice Walton is the daughter of Sam Walton, the hard-working boy from Oklahoma who went against all odds to build a multi-billion-dollar empire and become one of the richest men in the world. Well, we thought you’d have figured that out by now. You see, even if Alice didn’t make all her money by being a Walton heiress, the Walton empire contributed a lot to her net worth. Alice worked at Walmart as a buyer of children’s clothes soon after graduating college. That was about all she did at Walmart before her father’s death in April 1992. Upon her father’s death, Alice inherited a 13 percent stake in Walmart through the family’s trust and enterprise. Actually, her father had split his shares in Walmart equally between Alice and her 3 brothers. With this inheritance, Alice Walton has earned nothing less than $7 billion from sales of stocks and dividends.

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Alice And Her Career Orientation

Alice had always wanted to make and own her own money. So, while her 3 siblings devoted their time to working for Walmart, Alice decided to journey on her own career path. After working at Walmart sequel to her college graduation, Alice started working as an equity analyst at First commerce Corporation before becoming an options trader and broker at E.F. Hutton. This she did till she became the vice chairman and head of investments at Arvest bank Group which is known to be the Walton family bank. In 1988, Alice Walton founded Llama Company, acting as the president, chairperson, and CEO. She would later go on to chair the Northwest Arkansas Council, playing a vital role in the development of the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport by providing $15 million as initial funding for its construction while her company, Llama Company also granted a $79.5 million bond. In recognition of her contribution to the airport’s development, the terminal building was named Alice L. Walton. In further recognition of her philanthropic acts toward the development of the airport, she was inducted into the Arkansas Aviation Hall of Fame in the year 2001.

Alice Walton’s Most Prominent Investments

Alice’s Llama Company closed in the late 1990s as a result of the 1998 bond market crash and she subsequently bought a ranch in Millsap, Texas, and moved there. She would later name the ranch Walton’s Rocking W Ranch. Being a horse lover, Alice had a reputation for recognizing which colts and foals will grow up to become great cutters. Having made a lot of money from the farm and in a bid to move on to other ventures, Alice listed the farm for sale in 2015 and moved to Fort Worth, Texas with the intention to focus on the Crystal Bridges American art museum she started in Bentonville, Arkansas in 2011. It is no secret that Alice is a lover of American art and would buy any work she deems fit for her collection not minding the price.

In her collection are works by Norman Rockwell, John Singer Sargent, and Asher B. Durand among others. Being a businesswoman, Alice has shares in various companies worldwide and rakes in billions of dollars in dividends per year. In fact, her father described her as the child who took after him the most and is even more volatile than he is in his 1992 autobiography titled Made in America.

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Sources: Finty, Capitalism, and Bloomberg.

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