Mormon church owns Von's, Ralph's, Walmart.....???

Question

A client was telling me that the Mormon Church owns Von's stores, Ralph's and Walmart.... I can't find anything on the internet about it....True?

I hoped for a link of some kind, some sort of authoritative website or article (by someone we sould trust to be truthful), I thank you for the input but I'd like to know the source...so many stories are passed around with no real basis in fact (like this one it seems), actually now that I think of it....when you have CNN and Dan Rather going off on unture stories, who can you trust? Sigh. I know that at one time not too long ago the Mormon church owned a lot of business that had nothing to do with the church, how easy to pass it on the an individual on paper....no issue with that, I'm curious about the veracity of the client...likes to sound like an authority, but some of her facts seem pretty wild.......

Answer 1

No it's not true

Walmart is owned by the Walton Family in Arkansas

Von's is owned by Safeway, Inc

Ralph's is owned by the Ralph's Grocery Company

All are publicly traded companies so technically a Mormon could hold shares in these companies.

I remember when people used to accuse the Jews or the Japanese of owning everything

Answer 2

Like the previous people have stated, the church (Mormon church) doesnt own McDonalds or Walmart or those kind of businesses, but only book stores for the church, supermarkets where people can shop for free (Deseret etc)
Whether members of the church run these stores in another story, but it would have nothing to do with the church (profit wise), just the fact that members work there.

Answer 3

I believe a few years ago the Church leaders got off the boards of most companies and have only retained Church-related businesses. I do know they own Deseret Book, a chain of stores which carries both Mormon and general books and artwork, etc.

Answer 4

Not true. The original Ralphs family were LDS, but they sold their interest a long time ago. Now it is part of Krogers. The church might own shares of a variety of prominent companies as part of their investments, but they don't own any businesses outside of the well known ones in Utah like KSL and Deseret News.

Answer 5

don't think they own walmart, but the other stores not sure, the mormon people are supposed to geive largeportions of possestions to the church. so the fact that they own major stores is not totally out of the question. UNless the owners of walmart made a huge religious coonvestion over the last year, not so sure they would be mormon

Answer 6

Walmart is owned by the Walton family founded by Sam Walton.

interesting fact....

If Sam Walton were still alive today he would be 2x as rich as Bill Gates. Now that is some cash!

Answer 7

No. The family that owns Wal-Mart is very conservatively Christian, but being from Arkansas and all, I'm pretty sure that they aren't Mormons. I'm not familiar with the other ones.

Answer 8

Not true...the church doesn't "own" anything besides companies that benefit the church (for non-profit) like Deseret Industries and things like that...

Answer 9

I tell ya, I'm not sure. But I do know SOMETHING about Mormons. Their whole religion is based on the teachings of the angel, Moroni. Subsequently, they appeared to have named themselves after him. At some point, though, they found it necessary to add the extra 'm'.
Hmmm.

Answer 10

Definitely not true.