ACCO World Corporation

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ACCO World Corporation

500 Lake Cook Road
Suite 150
Deerfield, Illinois 60615-0818
U.S.A.
(708) 405-9000
Fax: (800) 962-0576

Wholly Owned Subsidiary of American Brands Corporation
Incorporated: October 26, 1970
Employees: 9,300
Sales: $1 billion (approximately)
Stock Exchanges: New York, Amsterdam, Brussels, Düsseldorf, Frankfürt, Geneva, Paris, London, Tokyo, Zürich
SICs: 3496 Miscellaneous Fabricated Wire Products; 2782 Blankbooks & Looseleaf Binders; 2621 Paper Mills; 6719 Holding Companies, Nee

ACCO World Corporation is one of the largest suppliers of office products. Built largely on the growth of paperwork over the last century, ACCO World has tied its recent growth to the proliferation of office product superstores, which have emerged as the most efficient high-volume channel for retail sales.

Thoroughly diversified within its market, ACCO World provides a wide variety of office products, from paper clips and bindery products to integrated computer accessories, workstations, and peripherals. As a result, it is likely that virtually every office contains at least one, and probably several, of the company’s products.

ACCO World has several predecessor companies, but the core organization that gave it its name was the Clipper Manufacturing Company. Clipper was founded in 1903 by Fred J. Kline. Originally located in Long Island City, New York, Clipper had one product: paper clips. Seemingly insignificant at only a fraction of a cent per piece, Clipper eventually turned out billions of the little wire contraptions.

In 1910 Kline changed the name of his firm to the grander sounding American Clip Company. Two years later, he invented a new paper fastener that he dubbed the “ACCO Fastener” after his company’s acronym. This two-pronged, locking paper compressor proved highly successful and cleared the way for several new products, including folders, binders, punches, and clamps. Also marketed under the ACCO brand name, these items became more well known than the company that made them. This prompted Kline to change the name of the company again in 1922, this time to ACCO Products, Inc.

Operating under the claim, “ACCO originates and develops,” the company prospered from the proliferation of paperwork in consumers’ business and personal affairs. ACCO Products grew tremendously on this expanding market. In 1924 Kline established an English subsidiary and, three years later, added another in Canada. The company also established a new product line, pressboard binders, in 1928. Available in five colors, these binders became common office supplies and represented the company’s continuing effort to broaden its product line.

In 1933 ACCO Products changed its distribution channels. Rather than serving as the exclusive distributor of its own products, the company enlisted a network of commercial vendors and later began printing mail order catalogs. Within one year, as the distribution network grew dramatically, a much greater demand for the company’s products was created. This led to another company tagline, “We’re easy and profitable to do business with.”

During this time, another ACCO World company got its start. Swingline, Inc., a manufacturer of staplers, was established in 1925 by Jack Linsky. From its factory on the Lower East Side of New York City, Swingline made a name for itself by developing more efficient stapler designs.

Swingline was one of the first companies to package staples in glued rows. Prior to this, staples had to be loaded individually or came attached to overly sturdy sheets of metal that did not break away cleanly. The glued staples, called frozen wire staples, allowed Swingline to introduce another innovation during the 1930s, the open channel stapler, in which rows of 50 or more staples could be dropped in at once. Swingline also developed a stroke control that almost eliminated the common problem of staples jamming.

ACCO and Swingline were deeply affected by the outbreak of World War II. With government controls on production, rationing, and the diversion of metal stocks to the defense industry, both companies had to find a new way to do business. Far from being pressed into action as war materials suppliers, the companies’ products proved to be essential because of the increased need for government record keeping.

ACCO Products fared better, having developed a paper clip made of pressed paper fiber as an alternative to metal clips and staples. In addition, the company reduced the metal content of its product line, manufacturing paper punches out of wood, but with metal hole punchers. It also introduced laced binders and lace ties for envelope binders. On the strength of wartime demand, ACCO Products had become a large company; in fact, after the war it was forced to relocate to a larger facility in Ogdensburg, New York, in 1947. This plant had been requisitioned during World War II to handle production for the government.

ACCO Products continued to prosper after the war as a steady business expansion occurred in all industries. As the nation’s commerce grew, so did the need for record keeping. By the mid 1950s, however, ACCO Products had become an attractive takeover target.

Gary Industries, a private holding company based in Chicago, acquired ACCO Products in 1956. Meanwhile, ACCO Products continued its growth by expansion and by this time was a major office supply manufacturer offering a complete line of products. Gary Industries did not become actively involved in ACCO Product’s affairs until 1966, when the parent moved the operation from Ogdensburg to Chicago. At that time, Gary brought in Douglas K. Chapman, formerly head of ACCO Products’ Canadian operations, to run the company, which was now known as the ACCO Division of Gary Industries.

Swingline, Inc., achieved its own recovery from World War II on the strength of the same postwar business boom that had catapulted ACCO Products to a leading position in the industry. Still limited to the manufacture of staplers, however, the company sought to diversify, and in 1960 took over the operations of the Wilson Jones Company.

Wilson Jones was founded in 1893 as the Chicago Shipping and Receipt Book Company. The company’s original proprietor was a Chicago jeweler who invented and began manufacturing a simple aluminum paper clasp. Six years later, the small company was taken over by Ralph B. Wilson. In 1904 the company developed the first three-ring binder, an invention that greatly contributed to its growth. Also that year, Wilson merged his company with the Jones Improved Loose Leaf Specialty Company, run by W. Gifford Jones and his two brothers. As the Wilson Jones Company, the enterprise benefited from a wider product line and a more efficient combined sales force.

ACCO Products redoubled international sales efforts in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1964 the company established a subsidiary in Holland and entered into a joint venture in Mexico. These were followed in 1970 by a joint venture in Jamaica and, in 1972, in Venezuela. To standardize the company’s identity, a new corporate design was introduced in 1968 that featured distinctive red and black bars. Two years later ACCO Products was reorganized under a new parent company, ACCO World Corporation. This holding company assumed centralized ownership of the American and European operations.

In 1971, however, Chapman and a group of senior executives launched a leveraged buyout of ACCO World. They succeeded and, having won their autonomy from Gary Industries, began several efforts to boost sales. The increase in product demand caused a need to move to larger, more modern quarters. At the time, however, the nation was in the grips of a serious recession, exacerbated by an oil embargo perpetrated by Middle Eastern countries. In spite of the adverse conditions, Chapman pressed on with plans to build a new headquarters facility in Wheeling, Illinois. After the move was completed in 1976, Chapman remarked that the decision to erect the new building was “one of the most positive things we could tell our employees, customers and suppliers about our optimism for the future.”

Meanwhile, ACCO World continued its international expansion with the establishment of a French subsidiary in 1975, another in West Germany in 1977, and joint ventures in New Zealand, Nigeria, Brazil, and Australia. At this time, ACCO Products, which was renamed ACCO International, started a new company, the Polyblend Corporation, based in St. Charles, Illinois. Polyblend was established specifically to extrude polyethylene, a plastic used in the manufacture of ACCO binders.

In 1982 the company’s Toronto-based ACCO Canada Ltd. subsidiary acquired Plymouth Tool and Stamping, Ltd. Plymouth, which had been an important supplier to ACCO International, was one of the most sophisticated tool and dye manufacturers in Canada.

In February of 1983 senior management took ACCO International—the American side of the business—public and gained a listing on the New York Stock Exchange. In May of that year the company purchased the Systems Furniture Company and in 1984 acquired Twinlock PLC, a British office products manufacturer, through its European subsidiary. In 1986 ACCO International also took over Kensington Microware, which produced computer workstation products. These acquisitions were intended to shore up ACCO’s position in the broader office market by adding furniture and other products to the line.

The Twinlock acquisition resulted in European wholesalers offering two competing product lines from the same company to their customers. In 1986, however, the ACCO International logo was incorporated into individual brand names to further solidify the company’s identity.

In 1987 American Brands, a tobacco, food, consumer products and financial services conglomerate, announced a bid to acquire ACCO World for $603 million. American Brands had acquired Swingline in 1970 and Wilson Jones in 1972. This caused the U.S. Justice Department to oppose the transaction on the grounds that American would enjoy excessive control over the fastener market.

In August of 1987 American Brands allowed the transaction to proceed by agreeing to divest itself of a substantial portion of its fastener business. The company sold its Swingline punch and two-hole fastener operations to Bates Manufacturing, and ACCO International sold its stapler business to Hunt Manufacturing.

The following year, ACCO International and Swingline coordinated their manufacturing and marketing operations, resulting in the expansion of ACCO’s Wheeling plant. American Brands, meanwhile, acquired Vogel Peterson Furniture Company, another office products and furniture manufacturer, and DayTimers, Inc., which made diaries and time planners. Vogel Peterson was consolidated with Systems Furniture in 1990, and its headquarters were relocated to Garden Grove, California.

In 1990 ACCO World introduced a new “Worldmark” logo for its American companies, which now included ACCO, Swingline, Wilson Jones, Vogel Peterson, Kensington and, through an earlier acquisition, Perma Products. The following year, ACCO International, Swingline and Wilson Jones were merged into one company—ACCO USA. The individual brand names, however, were retained.

ACCO brand products include fastening, computer, and bindery items. Swingline, the industry’s leading stapling products brand, offers a line that includes the tiny Swingline Tot 50, of which more than 100 million have been sold. Other models include conventional manual and electric devices. Swingline also makes desk accessories, task lighting, and clips for holding paper beside a computer terminal. The Wilson Jones line consists of accounting supplies, business forms, and DublLock binding kits. And, to dispose of it all, the company manufactures paper shredders.

ACCO World European operations belong to a separate parent company, ACCO-Rexel Group Holdings, PLC, whose revenues comprise roughly half of ACCO World’s total. ACCO-Rexel maintains an extensive distributor network throughout Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, and the Pacific Basin. The company is primarily involved in the manufacture of binding machines, manila and plastic folders, staples, pencils, filing products, computer supplies, and office furniture.

ACCO-Rexel has more than 100 subsidiaries, including 65 in the United Kingdom alone. The largest of these subsidiaries are Eastlight Limited in Britain, ACCO-Benelux in Holland, Hetzel & Company in Germany, King-Mec in Italy, Val-Rex in France, ACCO-Rexel in Ireland, and Marbig-Rexel and OPI in Australia.

ACCO World Corporation may best be described as an international network of companies focused on one market: office products. Perhaps due to the noncyclical nature of the office supply business, the company has avoided forays into fields outside its expertise, such as electronics, real estate, and transportation. As a result, ACCO World has avoided poor and nonstrategic investments that could have derailed its core businesses or burdened it with debt.

Principal Subsidiaries

ACCO USA; ACCO-Rexel Group Holdings, PLC; Perma Products; Vogel Peterson Furniture Company; Day-Timers, Inc.; Kensington Microware, Ltd.; ACCO Canada Ltd.