International division back in the black.

 

Global office and consumer products supplier ACCO Brands has posted strong second quarter sales results as international markets, including Australia, recover from the impact of the pandemic.

 

Neal Fenwick, chief financial officer at ACCO Brands, told analysts that net sales and comparable sales increased significantly because of higher demand in all countries. 

 

“Mexico and Brazil continue to be impacted by COVID-19, although we are seeing improvement as vaccination rates have increased. Our businesses in Australia, New Zealand, Asia and Chile are much less impacted,” he said.

 

“As a result of improved sales, this segment posted an adjusted operating profit of US$5 million versus a loss of US$2 million last year,” he added.

 

ACCO Brands total Q2 net sales increased 41.1 per cent to US$517.8 million, up from US$366.9 million in 2020 due to continued strength in EMEA, improvement in North America, partial recovery in international markets, and US$50.7 million from the gaming products company PowerA acquisition. 

 

Boris Elisman, global CEO of ACCO Brands, said: "Our second quarter results continued to reflect the market recovery. We posted a strong overall sales increase, with organic growth in all segments. Our strategy of transforming our company toward a more consumer-centric business continued to pay dividends as PowerA had another strong sales increase. 

 

“Our momentum gives us confidence that we will be able to deliver record sales and strong profit performance in 2021," Elisman said.