← All companies ← ACAD Manual ACDC → ← ABM Commercial Services & Supplies ADT →

ACCO, Acco Brands Corporation

Commercial Services & Supplies capital-intensive CyclicalSerial acquirer

ACCO Brands is a leading global consumer, technology and business branded products company, providing well-known brands and innovative product solutions used in schools, homes and at work.

Our products are sold primarily in the U.S., Europe, Australia, Canada, Brazil, and Mexico.

Product designs are tailored to end-user preferences in each geographic region, and where possible, leverage common engineering, design, and sourcing.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

ACCO · Acco Brands Corporation

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2025

$1.5B

−8.5% YoY · −2% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $1.6B 5-yr avg $1.8B

Gross margin 33% 5-yr avg 31%

Operating margin 5.7% 5-yr avg 3.1%

ROIC 6% 5-yr avg 3%

Owner-earnings margin 3% 5-yr avg 5%

Free cash flow margin 3% 5-yr avg 5%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

What it is: Revenue is ACCO Brands Americas (59%) and ACCO Brands International (41%).
Situation: Cyclical. Margins collapse and recover repeatedly across the record; a single year, good or bad, misstates the through-cycle earning power. Serial acquirer. Goodwill and acquired intangibles are 52% of assets, with meaningful acquisition spending in 4 of the record's 10 years; much of what this business is was bought, at prices the record carries.
What moves the needle: Gross margin has run about 32% and operating margin about 6.8% through the cycle, a spread the cycle sets more than the company does. The margin is cyclical, swinging between −2.2% and 10% over the years, so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year — and the balance sheet at the trough more than the peak. Inventory runs near 18% of sales, so how fast it turns back into cash — and the risk of writing it down when demand softens — sits alongside the margin. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has sat near the cost of capital (median 8%). By owner earnings: roughly 8% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. The cycle and the balance sheet decide this one; the worst year tells more than the median, and the rest is in the 10-K.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

Revenue spreads across 2 segments, the largest ACCO Brands Americas at 59%.

Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025

ACCO Brands Americas59%$894M
ACCO Brands International41%$630M

From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2016’16	2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
											Income statement
$1.6B	$1.9B	$1.9B	$2.0B	$1.7B	$2.0B	$1.9B	$1.8B	$1.7B	$1.5B	$1.6B	RevenueRevenue
33%	34%	32%	32%	30%	30%	28%	33%	33%	33%	33%	Gross marginGross mgn
21%	21%	20%	20%	20%	19%	19%	21%	22%	23%	23%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
1%	1%	1%	1%	1%	1%	1%	1%	1%	1%	1%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
$159M	$185M	$187M	$196M	$112M	$151M	$35M	$45M	($37M)	$92M	$89M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
10.2%	9.5%	9.6%	10.0%	6.8%	7.5%	1.8%	2.4%	−2.2%	6.1%	5.7%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$96M	$132M	$107M	$107M	$62M	$102M	($13M)	($22M)	($102M)	$41M	$74M	Net incomeNet inc.
24%	15%	32%	35%	21%	9%	—	—	—	16%	8%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$167M	$205M	$195M	$204M	$119M	$160M	$78M	$129M	$148M	$69M	$67M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$30M	$36M	$34M	$35M	$38M	$39M	$38M	$33M	$28M	$27M	$25M	DepreciationDeprec.
$22M	$21M	$45M	$52M	$13M	$3M	$43M	$103M	$210M	($11M)	($41M)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$19M	$31M	$34M	$33M	$15M	$21M	$18M	—	—	—	$18M	CapexCapex
1.2%	1.6%	1.8%	1.7%	0.9%	1.0%	0.9%	—	—	—	1.1%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$149M	$174M	$161M	$171M	$104M	$138M	$60M	—	—	—	$49M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
9.5%	8.9%	8.3%	8.7%	6.3%	6.8%	3.1%	—	—	—	3.2%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$149M	$174M	$161M	$171M	$104M	$138M	$60M	—	—	—	$49M	Free cash flowFCF
9.5%	8.9%	8.3%	8.7%	6.3%	6.8%	3.1%	—	—	—	3.2%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$89M	$292M	$38M	$41M	$339M	$0	$0	$0	$0	$10M	$1M	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$0	$0	$25M	$24M	$25M	$26M	$29M	$29M	$28M	$27M	$27M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
$0	$37M	$75M	$65M	$19M	$0	$19M	$0	$15M	$15M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
9%	10%	8%	8%	5%	8%	1%	—	-2%	5%	6%	ROICROIC
13%	17%	14%	14%	8%	12%	-2%	-3%	-17%	6%	11%	Return on equityROE
13%	17%	10%	11%	5%	9%	−5%	−6%	−21%	2%	7%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$43M	$77M	$67M	$28M	$37M	$41M	$62M	$66M	$74M	$64M	$119M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$391M	$469M	$428M	$454M	$356M	$416M	$384M	$431M	$349M	$360M	$278M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$210M	$254M	$341M	$283M	$305M	$428M	$395M	$328M	$270M	$289M	$356M	InventoryInvent.
$135M	$178M	$275M	$246M	$180M	$308M	$240M	$184M	$167M	$187M	$184M	Accounts payablePayables
$466M	$545M	$494M	$491M	$481M	$536M	$540M	$575M	$452M	$462M	$449M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$671M	$830M	$880M	$806M	$728M	$925M	$882M	$855M	$732M	$750M	$798M	Current assetsCur. assets
$406M	$538M	$599M	$589M	$557M	$709M	$589M	$542M	$490M	$465M	$450M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.7×	1.5×	1.5×	1.4×	1.3×	1.3×	1.5×	1.6×	1.5×	1.6×	1.8×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$587M	$670M	$709M	$719M	$827M	$803M	$672M	$590M	$446M	$479M	$473M	GoodwillGoodwill
$2.1B	$2.8B	$2.8B	$2.8B	$3.0B	$3.1B	$2.8B	$2.6B	$2.2B	$2.3B	$2.3B	Total assetsAssets
$704M	$940M	$888M	$816M	$1.1B	$1.0B	$1.0B	$926M	$840M	$841M	$901M	Total debtDebt
$661M	$863M	$821M	$788M	$1.1B	$966M	$943M	$859M	$766M	$777M	$782M	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
3.2×	4.5×	4.5×	4.5×	2.9×	3.3×	0.8×	0.8×	-0.7×	2.0×	1.9×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$709M	$774M	$790M	$774M	$743M	$865M	$810M	$787M	$606M	$665M	$680M	Shareholders’ equityEquity
1.2%	0.9%	0.5%	0.5%	0.4%	0.8%	0.5%	0.8%	0.7%	0.8%	0.5%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
—	—	—	—	—	—	$99M	$90M	$128M	—	$128M	Goodwill written downGW imp.
											Per share
109M	111M	107M	101M	96.1M	97.1M	95.3M	95.3M	95.6M	94.0M	95.5M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$14.26	$17.57	$18.14	$19.36	$17.22	$20.86	$20.44	$19.23	$17.43	$16.22	$16.24	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$0.87	$1.19	$1.00	$1.06	$0.65	$1.05	$-0.14	$-0.23	$-1.06	$0.44	$0.77	EPS (diluted)EPS
$1.36	$1.57	$1.50	$1.69	$1.08	$1.43	$0.63	—	—	—	$0.51	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$1.36	$1.57	$1.50	$1.69	$1.08	$1.43	$0.63	—	—	—	$0.51	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.00	$0.00	$0.23	$0.24	$0.26	$0.27	$0.30	$0.30	$0.30	$0.29	$0.28	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$0.17	$0.28	$0.32	$0.32	$0.16	$0.22	$0.19	—	—	—	$0.19	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$6.49	$6.98	$7.38	$7.66	$7.73	$8.91	$8.50	$8.26	$6.34	$7.07	$7.12	Book value / shareBVPS

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+1.4%/yr	−1.2%/yr
Owner earnings / share	−12.1%/yr (6-yr)	−16.7%/yr
EPS	−7.4%/yr	−7.4%/yr
Dividends / share	—	+2.3%/yr
Capital spending / share	+1.5%/yr (6-yr)	−7.9%/yr
Book value / share	+1.0%/yr	−1.8%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.

Share count

94Mpeak FY2017

ROIC

5%low FY2024

Gross margin

33%low FY2022

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

15.7×peak FY2022

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

$60Mowner earningsvs.($13M)net incomelow FY2022

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cash

Each year's outlays against its operating cash: the mix, and how it drifts. The hatched cap is spending beyond that year's operating cash — financed from the balance sheet or borrowing, not operations.

FY2016FY2025

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2018–FY2022cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2022 the business turned a $13M loss into $60M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

	FY2022	FY2021	FY2020	FY2019	FY2018
Reported net income	($13M)	$102M	$62M	$107M	$107M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$38M	+$39M	+$38M	+$35M	+$34M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$10M	+$15M	+$7M	+$10M	+$9M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$43M	+$3M	+$13M	+$52M	+$45M
Cash from operations	$78M	$160M	$119M	$204M	$195M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$18M	−$21M	−$15M	−$33M	−$34M
Owner earnings	$60M	$138M	$104M	$171M	$161M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	3%	7%	6%	9%	8%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the capital it must spend to hold its position . The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $10M), owner earnings is nearer $50M.

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 2.0×

Adequate

Operating income $92M ÷ interest expense $46M

What this means
Comfortable in a normal year, but below the margin of safety Graham looked for. Worth checking how stable the coverage has been across a full cycle.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $777M · 8.4× operating profit

Heavy net debt

Cash $64M − debt $841M

What this means
Netting $64M of cash and short-term investments against $841M of debt leaves $777M owed, about 8.4× a year's operating profit (9.1× on the gross debt, before the cash). Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
How long is cash tied up? 123d

Long (60+ days)

DSO 86 + DIO 103 − DPO 67 days

What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. Lower is better; a long cycle means growth itself eats cash.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital 8%

Below average through the cycle

9-yr median, range -2%–10%; 5% latest = NOPAT $78M ÷ invested capital $1.4B

Industry peers: median 11%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 9 years (it ran 5% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
Owner-earnings margin 8%

Solid through the cycle

7-yr median margin, range 3%–10%; latest $51M = operating cash $69M − maintenance capex $18M

Industry peers: median 4%

What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 3% of revenue this year, a 8% median across 7 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $12M of SBC) leaves $40M.
Are earnings backed by cash? 1.66×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $69M ÷ net income $41M

What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? 83%

Returns about half

Dividends + buybacks $42M ÷ Owner Earnings $51M

What this means
Of $51M Owner Earnings, $42M (83%) went back to shareholders, $27M dividends, $15M buybacks. Net of $12M stock comp, the real buyback was about $4M. Returning most of it is the mark of a mature business with little left to reinvest at a high return; reinvesting most could mean a long runway, or empire-building. The split doesn't say which; the return earned on it (see ROIC) does.
Investing or harvesting? 0.67×

Harvesting

Capex $18M ÷ depreciation $27M

What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 0 of 6 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

Adequate size Near

Revenue ≥ $2B · $1.5B

What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
Strong liquidity Near

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 1.61×

What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
Conservative debt Miss

Debt ≤ working capital · $841M vs $285M WC

What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
Earnings stability Miss

A profit every year (10-yr record) · 3 loss years

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Miss

Uninterrupted dividends · 8 of 10 yrs

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
Earnings growth Miss

Earnings +33% over the record · −125%

What this means
At least a third more earnings than a decade ago, averaging three years at each end. Net income (not per-share), so stock splits don't distort it, buybacks and dilution show up in the share-count line instead.
Moderate price —

P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price

What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $-0.30/share (latest year $0.45), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $7.20/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2016–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 7 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 3 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 10 yrs

What this means
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
Operating margin 10% → 2% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The filing claims pricing power in its strongest form — price raised, volume held — yet the margin here has not widened to match. The claim leads the record; weigh them together.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 10% early to 2% lately, median 7% — competition or costs are biting in.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital

What this means
The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.
Owner earnings growth −8%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings shrank about 8% a year over the record.
Worst year 2024 · −2.2% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2024, understand why before trusting the good years.
Share count −1.7%/yr

What this means
The share count is shrinking, buybacks are quietly growing your slice of the business.
Dividend record rising

What this means
Paid and raised the dividend across the record, the continuity Graham prized.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Elevated contestability

The product is software or information, the very thing capable AI now produces more cheaply, so the moat is more contestable than the record alone implies.

In its own filing Not named

Despite the structural exposure, the latest 10-K does not name AI as a competitive risk, which is itself worth a question.

The product is the kind capable AI most directly contests: when a substitute can be built cheaply, the incumbent's pricing power is the first thing at risk. The record cannot say whether the moat outlasts that; past durability is a starting point, not a promise.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Mar 31, 2026

Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.

Current assets$798M

Cash & short-term investments$119M
Receivables$278M
Inventory$356M
Other current assets$45M

Current liabilities$450M

Debt due within a year$26M
Accounts payable$184M
Other current liabilities$240M

Current ratio1.77×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.98×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.26×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$347Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$26M due · $119M cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Mar 31, 2026 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+8.3%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.8× → 1.8×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($476M)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($804M)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$955M$81M of it operating leases

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2016–2022

Over the record, the business generated $1.1B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

Reinvested$171M · 15%
Dividends$129M · 11%
Buybacks$215M · 19%
Retained (debt / cash)$613M · 54%

Returned to owners$343M
36% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $129M as dividends and $215M as buybacks.
Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt rose $198M and cash and short-term investments rose $76M.
Average price paid for buybacks$9.55
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 23M shares were bought for $215M, about $9.55 each. Year to year the price paid ranged from $7.03 (2020) to $12.51 (2018), and 2018, near the top of that range, was also its heaviest buyback year ($75M).
Net change in share count−12.5%
The diluted count fell from 109M to 96M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
Dividend record$0.30/sh
Paid in 5 of the years on record. It was never cut over the span.
Return on what it retained−24%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($248M over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) fell $60M, so each retained $1 gave back about 0.24 of yearly owner earnings. Buffett's test, run on owner earnings instead of market value.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

Acquisitions & goodwill

from the balance sheet & the 10-year cash-flow record

Goodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.

Goodwill & intangibles$1.2B52% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity72%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$825Mover 10 years buying other businesses, against $171M of capital spent building

$316M written down across 3 years (2022, 2023, 2024): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. That is roughly 38% of the cash it put into acquisitions over the span. A write-down costs no cash (the cash went out when the deal was signed), but it is management marking its own past judgment to market.

Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 10-year record, from the company's own filings.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Net income
2021	Mr. Elisman	$7.3M	$7.4M	$102M
2022	Mr. Elisman	$5.3M	$134k	($13M)
2023	Mr. Elisman	$4.4M	$6.2M	($22M)
2023	Mr. Tedford	$2.7M	$3.4M	($22M)
2024	Mr. Tedford	$4.2M	$3.7M	($102M)
2025	Mr. Tedford	$4.5M	$1.3M	$41M

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Net income is the whole business's, as filed, for the same fiscal years.

Insider ownership5.3%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
CEO pay ratio111:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
Stock-based compensation$12M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 12% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why Acco Brands Corporation is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2016–2025.

2 of the 6 tests turned up something to look into; the other 4 came back clean.

Look hereIs it less profitable than it was?5.4% vs 8.9%
The owner-earnings margin averaged 8.9% early in the record and 5.4% across the last three years, and the latest year has not recovered. Ask the filing whether that is a structural drift or a cyclical trough — price, mix, cost, or a competitor — and whether it is permanent.
Look hereDid debt outgrow the business?$704M → $901M
Debt rose from $704M to $901M while owner earnings went from about $161M to $101M — about 4.4 years of owner earnings in debt then, about 8.9 now: measured against what the business earns, the balance sheet carries more debt than it did. Debt raised for buybacks or deals rather than growth is the kind that bites in a downturn.

And these came back clean

Did the share count rise anyway?
Did reported profit become cash?
Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?
Are "one-time" charges a yearly habit?

Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →

Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Revenue recognition, Pension & retirement, Income taxes, Inventory as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →

The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.

Peers, nearest by economic model

No close industry peers in the catalog yet, so these are the nearest by economic model (capital-intensive), compared on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
QUADQuad Graphics Inc	$2.4B	20%	1.9%	8%	3%
WNCWabash National Corporation	$1.5B	13%	6.4%	14%	4%
AEBIAebi Schmidt Holding AG Common Stock	$1.5B	20%	5.8%	—	2%
ACCOAcco Brands Corporation	$1.5B	33%	7.1%	8%	8%
NHCNational HealthCare Corporation	$1.5B	—	5.3%	6%	7%
MATWMatthews International Corporation	$1.5B	33%	2.5%	2%	6%
BLBDBlue Bird Corporation	$1.5B	13%	3.9%	53%	4%
FOXFFox Factory	$1.5B	32%	14.1%	18%	8%
Group median	—	20%	5.6%	8%	5%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Acco Brands Corporation has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Acco Brands Corporation earns about $115M on its 7.6% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 3.3% margin runs below that; the reported figure may understate a lean year. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($115M) Net of stock comp (−$8M)

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price—

Owner-earnings growth · ’18→’22−12%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’22−8%/yr

Owner-earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)—

P/B—

Graham’s price gate—

Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.

Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%

Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.

Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.

Owner earnings $49M on 92M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-24; net debt $782M. The if-converted diluted count is 96M, 4% above the shares outstanding: the dilution overhang (convertibles, options) a buyer inherits. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh ACCO against another business →

The owners of ACCO: the meeting and the votes →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Acco Brands Corporation (ACCO), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/ACCO, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← ACAD its page in the Manual ACDC →

Industry order: ← ABM the Commercial Services & Supplies chapter ADT →