Anthony Pratt plans Ohio investment

Packaging magnate Anthony Pratt is planning a new plant as part of a pledge to spend $US2bn in the US in the next decade.

Anthony Pratt is planning his next US investment. Pic: David Caird

The nation’s richest person, paper and packaging magnate Anthony Pratt, is expected to make the US state of Ohio the next investment destination in his pledge to Donald Trump to spend $US2 billion in America over the next decade.

It has emerged that Mr Pratt’s American company Pratt Industries is planning to spend $US275 million to build a new paper mill and box manufacturing plant at Wapakoneta, 185km from Cincinnati.

The mill is expected to have capacity of 360,000 tonnes per year and will be financed by a $US210 million tax-exempt municipal revenue bond to be issued by the Ohio Air Quality Development Authority, according to reports in the US trade press in recent days.

It has also been reported that Pratt Industries will provide the other $US65 million for the project from equity.

The firm has secured more than $500 million worth of debt via the private placement market or so-called 30 year “green bonds” in the US during the past two decades to drive its growth.

A spokesman for Pratt Industries declined to comment on the company’s plans, but it has been speculated Ohio is expected to approve the financing deal for the project as early as next week.

Construction work is speculated to be scheduled to get under way next March, with the new paper machine set to start operating in the fourth quarter of 2019.

In May, Mr Pratt pledged to spend $US2bn in America over the next decade to dramatically expand the footprint of Pratt Industries, now the fifth largest corrugated box manufacturer in America.

The firm has spent more than $US700 million on acquisitions, factory extensions or new constructions over the past two years. Pratt Industries is targeting annual sales of $5bn in five years time.

In August Mr Pratt also pledged that his family’s Australasian Visy paper, packaging and recycling group would invest $2bn in Australia to create 5000 high-paying manufacturing jobs.

He made the Australian pledge at the opening of the $100m expansion of Visy’s Tumut paper mill in southern NSW, which was attended by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

In Australia Visy has raised $150 million in long-term debt from two Australian superannuation funds, AustralianSuper and IFM Investors.

Anthony Pratt with Malcolm Turnbull at Tumut. Pic: Kym Smith