Billionaire Anthony Pratt pledges to invest $2bn in Visy Australia

Billionaire Anthony Pratt has vowed to invest $2bn in Visy Australia, mirroring an earlier US commitment.

Workers at Visy’s Campbellfield plant. (Picture: Tony Gough)

Three months since he vowed before United States President Donald Trump to spend US$2 billon in America over the next decade, billionaire Anthony Pratt has made the same pledge in his home country of Australia before Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

At an event attended by the Prime Minister at the Tumut paper mill in southern NSW owned by the Pratt family’s Visy paper, packaging and recycling group, Mr Pratt has vowed to invest $2bn in Visy Australia to create 5,000 high paying manufacturing jobs.

He told guests assembled at the event that the $2bn investment would create more than 13,000 permanent new jobs in Australia, plus around 14,000 construction jobs.

The spend will take Visy’s total investment in Australia since the company was established by his late grandfather Leon in 1948 and then expanded by his late father Richard to $8bn.

“Per head of population this is the biggest pledge we have ever made,’’ Mr Pratt said in an interview ahead of today’s event.

“We believe in Australia because the best social program is a job. To some extent, it shines a light on investment and job creation in Australia in a put your money where your mouth is sort of way. At a time when the car industry is exiting Australia, we are spending. We want to start a conversation.”

In May, Mr Pratt received a standing ovation from US President Trump at the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea event in New York, also attended by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, after pledging a further $US2bn ($2.7bn) worth of investment in the US over the next decade.

There has been mass exodus of business leaders from presidential advisory councils in America after President Trump was criticised for taking an equivocal stance on the violence that erupted in Charlottesville a fortnight ago.

Mr Pratt declined to comment on the Charlottesville issue, but said President Trump was ‘’very focused on manufacturing and we are engaged in manufacturing.’’

‘’Speaking from the narrow point of view of what I do which is manufacturing, his goals on manufacturing are very similar to ours and for that I am externally grateful. From a manufacturing, jobs creation point of view he has been good. I do believe all good leaders are focused on job creation. My politics is the importance of job creation,’’ he said.

In 2007 Mr Pratt committed to invest $US1bn in paper recycling and waste-to-energy infrastructure at a Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York.

Visy and Mr Pratt’s US firm Pratt Industries now operate 5 clean energy plants in America and Australia — including one at Tumut — that convert paper mill waste into power, and Mr Pratt said part of the new $2bn of spending in Australia would be on new clean energy plants.

The plants now generate one-third of Visy and Pratt’s power needs and Mr Pratt his goal was to lift this to at least 50 per cent. Visy is currently working on establishing its next plant in Sydney.

‘’Our vision is to spend the money on clean energy, recycling infrastructure and other forms of packaging. We currently have 120 packaging plants in Australia. I would hope in 10 years we would get to 200,’’ Mr Pratt said.

‘’Exporting is going to be a huge opportunity for us — 60 per cent of Tumut’s paper is exported. It is the biggest exporter of shipping containers in Australia.’’

Visy currently generates half the revenues of Mr Pratt’s global operations. He said Visy’s revenues were growing at between 5-10 per cent per year.

‘’This new investment is doubling the rate of which we have been investing here recently, so we are doubling down on Australia,’’ Mr Pratt said.

Mr Pratt also announced yesterday a $100 million investment in the Tumut mill, including a one-off $50m spend to allow it to produce white paper grades for the export market.

In the US his Pratt Industries is now the fifth largest corrugated box manufacturer in America, after spending more than $US600 million on acquisitions, factory extensions or new constructions over the past two years. Its revenues are approaching $US4 billion.