Fortune Brands, Inc. (NYSE-FO), the international consumer products company, announced that it has acquired May Tag & Label Corp., a manufacturer of office products.

May Tag & Label manufactures and distributes label and tag products, primarily under the Maco brand name. 1996 sales were $28 million. The company's headquarters are in Hillside, New Jersey.

The DAK Group, Ltd., a merger and acquisition firm located in Rochelle Park, New Jersey, acted as financial advisor to May Tag & Label Corp. Alan J. Scharfstein, the president of The DAK Group, Ltd., stated that, "The combination of the resources of these two companies will create a major force in the label/office products industry that will stretch worldwide. This is another example of the office products industry's trend toward consolidated and more efficient use of resources."

May Tag & Label will be operated as part of the home and office category of Fortune Brands, under its ACCO brand. In office products Fortune's leading brands include ACCO, Kensington computer accessories, Day-Timer time management systems, Swingline staplers and Wilson Jones binders, indexes and filing systems. ACCO also has strong market positions in Europe and Australia. Last month, ACCO completed the acquisition of Nobo Group plc, a manufacturer of presentation products based in the U.K. and France.

Fortune Brands, Inc. is an international consumer products company with headquarters in Old Greenwich, Connecticut. Its operating companies have premiere brands and leading market positions. Thomas C. Hays, Fortune Brands' chairman and chief executive officer, noted that, "this acquisition continues our strategy of making high return, add-on acquisitions to enhance our leading market positions and accelerate growth. We are the world leader in office supplies, and the Maco brand further strengthens that position. Maco will give us a strong foot-hold in ink jet and laser labels, a category with significant growth potential as the PC printer after-market continues to expand."