ACCO Brands Corp Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Gregory Burns - Sidoti & Company - Analyst : Morning. Looking at the the technology business, I think last quarter you had mentioned maybe some excess channel inventory for some product categories, where does the channel inventory now stand? And with Windows, the Windows Update occurring in AIPC's coming out, how do you view the growth prospects for that business as we go into the back half of this year and into 2025. Thank you.

Question: Gregory Burns - Sidoti & Company - Analyst : And then in terms of M&A, would you be looking to add like a new product category like gaming or or would you be more apt to do something bye-bye, smaller brands and maybe existing categories like the office market, how should we think about your your M&A strategy, maybe particularly how it might be used to drive growth in the office side in more traditional categories? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. AUGUST 02, 2024 / 12:30PM, ACCO.N - Q2 2024 ACCO Brands Corp Earnings Call

Question: Gregory Burns - Sidoti & Company - Analyst : Okay. And then just lastly, when you look at the the market, what's the pipeline of opportunity how do the valuations look on a movie just start there?

Question: Gregory Burns - Sidoti & Company - Analyst : Thank you.

Question: Joseph Gomes - Noble Capital Markets, Inc. - Analyst : Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to start off this morning business. Pardon me, you mentioned the market for the office and back-to-school consumer still remains softer than what you guys were ahead anticipating kind of wondering if you could maybe highlight a few of those things where internally you are projecting, you know, it's business too grow faster than what it did in the quarter? And what have you as you're sitting there today, it needs to happen on the consumer side or on the office product side in order for those if revenue declines to significantly moderate from where they they have been here.

Question: Joseph Gomes - Noble Capital Markets, Inc. - Analyst : Yes. Okay, great. Thanks. And one more a great job on the on the gross margins, you mentioned that gross margins have improved. I think sequentially for six quarters. Is this a sustainable number as we go forward here? Or do you think there could be even more improvement in gross margin, especially given that you've exited a bunch of low margin products. Thanks.

Question: Joseph Gomes - Noble Capital Markets, Inc. - Analyst : Yes. Great. Thanks for taking my questions.

Question: Kevin Steinke - Barrington Research - Analyst : Thank you. I wanted to start off by asking about gaming accessories. You talked about last quarter, you had some growth. And this quarter was down. You talked about the tough comparable you had noted kind of expected that recovery to be choppy. Although I believe you said in the opening remarks that you expect a recovery in gaming accessories in the second half can you just maybe elaborate a little bit more on that? What you would expect would drive that? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. AUGUST 02, 2024 / 12:30PM, ACCO.N - Q2 2024 ACCO Brands Corp Earnings Call

Question: Kevin Steinke - Barrington Research - Analyst : Okay. That's helpful. Thanks. And you continue to talk about product development and what while it sounds like it's still early there. It looks like you had a couple of press releases out over the last couple of months about launches in Kensington and so does that do those kind of fit into that? It's a product development tailored to the changing world of work and maybe just talk about the overall product development pipeline and when we could start to see products start rolling out it more start rolling out on in a more meaningful way?

Question: Kevin Steinke - Barrington Research - Analyst : Okay. It sounds sounds good. I'm kind of searching through your 10-K here, just to find out where you stand with repurchase authorization, but could you update us on what what has been authorized there? You know, when you might expect to start buying back stock?

Question: Kevin Steinke - Barrington Research - Analyst : Okay. That makes sense. Well, thanks for taking the questions. I'll turn it back over.

Question: William Reuter - BofA Securities - Analyst : Good morning, Tom. My first question is a lot of comments about the weakness in office products in back-to-school. Seems to imply that maybe the category is more or less recession resistant than I would have expected. And are you how confident are you that the declines are due to weak consumer spending relative to some less usage of some of your traditional paper products versus products that may be moving online and some capacity?

Question: William Reuter - BofA Securities - Analyst : Got it. And then in terms of M&A, in the initial discussion, you kind of talked about M&A broadly than you used the word tuck-in, at least once maybe twice. Would you consider more transformative M&A or should be expected any sort of M&A would be relatively modest in size.

Question: William Reuter - BofA Securities - Analyst : Got it. And then on the decision to kind of reallocate capital to a little more balanced approach between share repurchases and debt reduction. While you guys have made great progress, you're clearly still a little ways away from your target of 2% to 2.5%. I guess why is this the time to kind of change that allocation versus getting leverage down a little more before we do that yet?

Question: William Reuter - BofA Securities - Analyst : Got it. That makes sense. All right. Thanks. That's all for me.