Forensic Analysis · General / Diversified · as of Aug 12, 2026

Acco Brands Corp (ACCO)

A forensic read on Acco Brands Corp built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.

D · Weak — demands caution

Forensic grade

Distress

Financial health

0.4

Distress distance

Clean

Earnings quality

Forensic signals

6.9

P / E (ttm)

6.2%

ROE

$396M

Market cap

6.80%

Dividend yield

-8.5%

Revenue growth

This free snapshot doesn't read filing or proxy text, so the auditor-quality and governance checks that can lower a grade were not evaluated (red flags, auditor quality, say on pay, board independence). Those checks only ever lower a grade, so the full analysis can land below the grade above but never above it — treat it as the most favourable reading, not the settled one.

Acco Brands Corp earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 0.4, placing it in the Distress zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.

What the filings flag

4.3%

FY2025

Return on invested capital. Return on invested capital is 4.3% in the latest fiscal year and rising from 1% — well below its ~9% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.

-0.5%/yr

FY2022–FY2025

Share count. Diluted share count changed -1% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (-0.5%/yr). Roughly flat — buybacks ($15M) are about offsetting stock comp ($12M), not shrinking the count. Per-share value isn't being meaningfully helped or hurt by the count.

61% of OCF

FY2025

Shareholder returns. Returned $42M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025 — 61% of operating cash flow. Capex isn't disclosed for FY2025, so this is the ceiling on coverage, not the free-cash-flow payout — actual free-cash coverage is tighter than this reads.

$316M

FY2022–FY2024

Goodwill impairments. Took $316M of goodwill writedowns across 3 years (FY2022 ($99M), FY2023 ($90M), FY2024 ($128M)). Writedowns mean past acquisitions underperformed what was paid for them.

Key fundamentals

Latest Revenue$1.52B

Revenue Growth YoY-8.5%

Revenue CAGR (3yr)-7.8%

Net Margin2.7%

Return on Equity6.2%

Debt / Equity1.27x

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Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Aug 12, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.