• Wall Street Journal, Detroit News, Retailing Today, Monday, June 7, 2010 10:56 AM

Saint Consulting Group, a firm started by a former newspaper reporter and political press secretary 26 years ago, has made a specialty out of creating clandestine operations around the country that are designed to thwart the expansion of Wal-Marts, Ann Zimmerman, with contributions from Dionne Searcey, reports. Saint is hired by competing supermarket chains worried about the impact of Wal-Mart's low prices on their bottom lines.

In documents obtained by the reporters, company founder P. Michael Saint jokingly calls his staff "Wal-Mart killers" and describes the tactics it uses as "black arts." In an interview, however, he is far more circumspect and will not directly discuss his company's activities that, at a minimum, delay the opening of the Wal-Mart stores. He does point out that companies have protection under the First Amendment for using legal processes to thwart competition, even if they do so secretly.

Jaclyn Trop writes about Wal-Mart's aggressive expansion in the Detroit metro area in a piece in the Detroit News. Kroger and Meijer already have renovated stores to compete for higher-end customers, she reports, and the Wal-Mart expansion is initially expected have a bigger impact on smaller, more vulnerable independent grocery stores. But analysts tell her that even the big chains, which have unionized workers, eventually could be threatened by nonunion Wal-Mart.

"If Wal-Mart had as many stores as Kroger, they would monopolize," says David Livingston, a grocery analyst and managing partner at DJL Research.

Retailing Today, meanwhile, reports Wal-Mart president and CEO Mike Duke laid out four priorities at the company's annual meeting Friday morning: Become a truly global company; understand the business challenges that retailers will face and solve them; play an even bigger leadership role on social issues that matter to our customers; keep our culture strong everywhere.

"Future success is never guaranteed," Duke said. "Leadership is not an entitlement, especially in our business."

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