Wal-Mart is combining divisions and creating three distinct geographic business territories in the United States.

The retailer announced the sweeping structural changes Thursday afternoon in four separate memos from executives.

The changes will make the company more efficient and accelerate growth, according to Eduardo Castro-Wright, Wal-Mart vice chairman.

The restructuring includes aligning Puerto Rico stores with Walmart US; dividing Walmart US into three business units, Walmart West, Walmart North and Walmart South; creating e-commerce through a global.com organization; and combining logistics, real estate and store operations under the same leadership.

Wal-Mart eliminated “a relatively small number” of field merchandising positions spread across the country, said Dave Tovar, Wal-Mart spokesman. He declined to provide a number of jobs lost, but said former associates would be paid until April 9, could apply for other Wal-Mart jobs and would get help finding other jobs.

For continued coverage, be sure to read tomorrow's newspaper or return to NWAonline.com.