Corporate controversies seem to get stranger and stranger. Now, a growing tempest resulting from a fired security manager may have led to a tip off that Wal-Mart is considering spinning off its Sam’s Club division to boost its sagging stock price.

We won’t go into all the details here, but a security manager recently fired by Wal-Mart for recording conversations between a reporter and a company executive has been talking to the Wall Street Journal and other media about the extent of Wal-Mart’s security precautions.

That’s way outside our editorial focus (see Wal-Mart Defends Security Tactics, But Changes Made After Taping Of Calls for details), but the news – sort of – that Wal-Mart may be spinning off its warehouse store division Sam’s Club is of interest to many in the supply chain community.

A story in the Wall Street Journal Monday said the security manager, a 19-year company veteran named Bruce Gabbard, told the paper about a super secret effort named “Project Red” that has been exploring strategies for boosting Wal-Mart’s stock price, which has faired poorly over the last five years.

The Wall Street Journal article is unclear, but quotes Gabbard, who in his role had direct electronic access to board meetings and it seems virtually everything else in the company, as saying, “that rather than splitting itself up to increase the stock price, in his view Wal-Mart should return to founder Sam Walton's values of ‘customer service and respect for the individual.’"

It is not clear whether Gabbard was more specific to the Wall Street Journal about what “splitting itself up” really meant, and the paper just limited its reporting, or if this was all Gabbard said to the reporters. The paper does, however, reference a possible Sam’s spin-off in the sub-headline to the story (He Knew of 'Project Red,' Secret Plan Mulling Ideas, Like a Sam's Club Spinoff).

In any case, many do believe the reference to “splitting itself up” refers to, at minimum, a spin off of Sam’s Club, which some stock market analysts have been suggesting the company should do for some time.

A federal circuit court judge has now placed a restraining order on Gabbard, blocking him from exposing to reporters any confidential Wal-Mart information.