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ACCO Brands Corporation
ACCO Brands makes and sells everyday office and school products — think binders, staplers, and whiteboards — to schools, homes, and businesses.
ACCO Brands is the company behind a lot of the boring-but-essential stuff in your desk drawer and your kid's backpack. It sells office, school, technology, and consumer products — binders, staplers, paper shredders, whiteboards, laminators, and the like — to schools, homes, and businesses. You probably own several of its products without ever noticing the company's name.
Its products reach customers through several well-known brands, including Five Star and Mead school supplies, Swingline staplers, Kensington computer accessories, and Quartet whiteboards. The business mostly runs through retail stores — office superstores, mass merchants, and online sellers — plus direct sales to schools, businesses, and resellers. Those big retail customers hold a lot of bargaining power, which is one reason the business is not glamorous and margins are thin. The pandemic hit hard when offices emptied and schools went remote; ACCO's sales fell sharply in 2020, and it has since worked to recover as people returned to offices and classrooms. ACCO is also a serial acquirer. In 2024 it bought the video game accessories brand PowerA from Microsoft, a deal that pushed the company further into consumer electronics and gaming peripherals — a faster-growing, more consumer-facing corner of the market than school binders. That shift matters: stationery demand is soft and slow, while gaming accessories ride the boom in console and PC gaming.
The company is headquartered in the Chicago area and is exposed to the same pressures as other old-line office products players like Staples (now private) and Office Depot — shoppers buying less paper and fewer binders, and big retailers squeezing suppliers. Its strength is its portfolio of brands and its steady cash flow; its vulnerability is that its core categories are shrinking. If you want to understand ACCO, think of it as a collection of trusted but unexciting brands, trying to buy its way into products people still feel excited about.
Saved answer · last researched 11 Nov 2026
BIG PICTURE
Computer and gaming accessories will soon bring in about 30% of ACCO's sales
- 30% Technology Peripherals: Kensington, EPOS, PowerA, Trust
- 70% Traditional school, office and workspace products
ACCO is best known for binders and staplers, but it has been buying its way into computer and gaming gear. With Kensington, PowerA, EPOS and the newly acquired Trust together, those products should bring in close to $500 million a year, about 30% of sales. That gives a 130-year-old school-supplies company a second act in keyboards, controllers and headsets. Source: ACCO Brands Q3 2026 earnings call, data from 2026
Timeline
Two Brothers Start Novo
In 1903, Fred J. Kline started a small company on Long Island, New York, called the Clipper Manufacturing Company, making paper clips. That modest school and office products business would grow around simple, iconic inventions like the ring binder and the paper clip.
The 'ACCO' Name Sticks
The company was renamed the American Clip Company in 1910, and it first used 'ACCO' as an initialism. The nickname stuck so well that it became the company's formal name in 1922.
Public and Then Swallowed
After years of buying up other businesses, ACCO went public in 1983. Just a few years later, in 1987, it was acquired by American Brands, later known as Fortune Brands, and stopped trading on its own.
Set Free and Merged
In 2005, Fortune Brands spun off ACCO World and merged it with General Binding Corporation. The combined company was renamed ACCO Brands Corporation that August. In plain terms, after years of being a small piece of a big company, it was back on its own feet.
A Big Bet on Office Brands
ACCO Brands completed an $860 million deal to combine with MeadWestvaco's Consumer and Office Products business in 2012. The deal brought in well-known brands like Mead, Five Star, Trapper Keeper, AT-A-GLANCE, Hilroy and Tilibra. It made the company the number one branded office products company in the world by sales.
Going Deeper into Europe
In 2017, ACCO Brands acquired Esselte Group Holdings AB. The deal strengthened its position in Europe and added brands like Leitz, Esselte, Rapid and Rexel.
Gaming Controllers and a New Direction
In 2020, ACCO Brands bought PowerA, a maker of video game controllers and gaming accessories. This was a clear step toward technology accessories, a faster-growing corner of the market than staplers and binders.
A New Chief Executive
In 2023, Thomas W. Tedford took over as chief executive officer from Boris Elisman. A change at the top often signals a shift in where a company wants to go next.
Betting on Headsets and Tech
In January 2026, ACCO Brands completed the acquisition of EPOS, a provider of premium enterprise headsets and audio solutions. The move was part of a push toward faster-growing technology peripheral categories, and with Trust also acquired, tech accessories were approaching $500 million in annual sales, about 30% of future sales. Full-year 2026 sales were expected to rise 4-6%, helped by the Trust acquisition.