When Anthony Pratt, a red-haired billionaire Australian owner of the largest US firms, manufactures cardboard packaging from recycled materials, personally conducts a tour of his factory in Valparaiso (Indiana), it always brings visitors to the copper plate "Open Mohamed Ali July 15, 2000 ". "I like to say that we are the second greatest boxer of all time - Pratt joked, referring to the box (English. box), it produces. Pleasing to 55-year-old businessman is not only banal jokes and familiarity relationship with Ali. He owned public company Pratt Industries - one of the fastest growing companies in the production of cardboard packaging (in America is a market of $ 35 billion) and the only one who makes it entirely from recycled materials. Recycling newsprint and boxes of pizza in the cardboard, Pratt multiplied his fortune to $ 3.4 billion. But he saves from felling 50 000 trees per day. "We are engaged in the manufacture of recycled long before environmental concerns became fashionable," - says Pratt. Only in the last 15 months, the company from the state of Georgia in the United States has invested nearly $ 450 million, mainly in the construction of the factory (now the fourth in a row) in Valparaiso, not far from the one that was consecrated in the name of Ali. Pratt appreciates that a break in Chicago, at the largest US packaging market. Now EBITDA Pratt Industries is $ 260 million (sales of $ 2 billion), and Pratt believes that with the introduction of new production in September, it will exceed $ 300 million. In total the company operates more than 130 objects, including paper mills, container plants, distribution centers, located in 26 US states and in Mexico. In its daily capacity of 3,000 tons of paper produced, from which you can produce 12 million boxes. "Suddenly, it was a key player in the industry - confirms Mark Wilde, Director, BMO Capital Markets. - Amazing History ". Pratt started this business in 1991, buying a paper mill in the city of Macon, GA. He came to the US from Australia, where his family ran the company Visy, which was founded by his grandfather in 1948. (Today, Pratt Industries and Visy - related companies, both controlled Pratt. ) Based in America, he quickly discovered the unoccupied niche. All the while making paper from wood and waste paper exported to landfills. Why no one had disposed of? Visy Australia's exactly this involved. Soon Pratt shut obsolete plant in Macon and began processing the products of competitors. This decision taken by Pratt more than ten years before the boom in "green" technologies, proved correct. Competitors are placed closer to the woody plants resource, and then transported to the paper mills near big cities where it did from the box. Pratt also has manufacturing facilities in accordance with the requirements of logistics - near the cities where a lot of and recycled, and consumers. Thus it was possible to reduce shipping costs. And since he was a freshman in the US market and created his factory from scratch instead of buying old, as did competitors, the production he had a modern and efficient. Construction cost the relatively cheap - at Pratt had his own construction firm, which specialized in low cost manufacturing facilities. Newer technologies, combined with the relative ease of recycling can reduce the staff by three-quarters compared with traditional manufacturing competition. "We are building space shuttles, and they compete with aircraft from the Second World" - says Pratt. And yet, it depends on the competition - because they produce a paper, which was later thrown away, collect and send its plants as raw material. But paper can not be recycled endlessly, sooner or later it starts to decompose. American paper market is great, and the majority of its members with both hands holding on to old technologies (they still bring in money), so Pratt is optimistic about the future. He expects Pratt Industries, which controls less than 5% of the US market in the next seven years to double sales in the country to $ 4 billion, while worldwide sales increase to $ 10 billion. He estimates at $ 1 billion in revenue in California division of the company - a contribution to the growing market for fruit and vegetables. Pratt also expects to earn a contract with a major parcel operators, such as the Amazon and the Federal Postal Service U. Postal Service. He is willing to bet that the further development of online trading will lead to increased demand for "green" recycled box. And he continues to develop one of the most successful areas - production of light packaging. It also depends on those American companies that produce products that require packaging, that is, from the entire US manufacturing industry. This makes it vulnerable position, but still he was pleased that he was closely associated with the sector, which many shrug off. Manufacturing in America is growing and Pratt believes that it gives him a chance to win a few rounds. "My policy in America was founded on the belief that a stable growth - it is forever - he says. - Efficient use of resources - wave, which subside more soon ".

Original article: Green box: how to put together a billionaire on waste paper.