Wal-Mart Says China SVP of Operations Shawn Gray Has Left

June 17, 2011, 4:20 PM EDT By Matthew Boyle

(Updates share price in fourth paragraph.)

June 17 (Bloomberg) -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said its vice president of operations in China left the company, becoming at least the third executive from that nation to depart in the past month.

Shawn Gray left for “personal reasons,” Wal-Mart said in an e-mail today. The Bentonville, Arkansas-based company, the world’s biggest retailer, didn’t say if a replacement had been named.

Roland Lawrence, Wal-Mart’s chief financial officer in China, and Rob Cissell, chief operating officer there, left the company in May to “seek new development opportunities.” The retailer has sought to boost investment in China, the world’s second-largest economy, and last month agreed to buy an undisclosed stake in online shopping operator Yihaodian.

Wal-Mart fell 1 cent to $52.82 at 4:01 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have dropped 2.1 percent this year.

Operations in China, where Wal-Mart had 333 outlets at the end of April, generated $7.5 billion in revenue, or 1.8 percent of the company’s $420 billion in total sales last year, Scott Price, chief executive officer for Asia, said in March. Sales in China rose 12 percent in the first quarter of this year, the company said May 17.

--With assistance from Lauren Coleman-Lochner in New York. Editors: Romaine Bostick, Julie Alnwick

To contact the reporter on this story: Matthew Boyle in New York at mboyle20@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Julie Alnwick at jalnwick@bloomberg.net

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