Richard Pratt

Richard Pratt

Richard Pratt, AC, is Chairman of Visy Industries, a privately owned Melbourne based packaging and recycling company employing almost 8000 people in Australasia and the USA. Visy’s total manufacturing sales exceed $3 billion.

Visy was founded in 1948 by Richard Pratt’s parents, Leon and Paula Pratt and their original partners. Richard took over as chairman of the company after his father’s death in 1969. At that time Visy operated a single corrugated box making factory in Reservoir Victoria with about 200 employees. Under Richard’s leadership Visy expanded dramatically and now operates mote than 100 manufacturing facilities in Australia, New Zealand, South East Asia and the USA.

In 1979 Visy built its first paper recycling mill and now operates eight paper recycling machines in Australia and the USA producing more than 1.2 million tones of 100% recycled packaging paper each year.

In addition Visy also operates a, $450 million, 240,000 tonne kraft paper mill in Tumut, New South Wales which began operating in 2001.

In February 2001 Visy spent more than $800 million to acquire Southcorp Packaging Australia, now named VisyPak, adding PET bottles and jars, aluminum and steel cans, paperboard cartons and rigid plastic packaging to its core corrugated packaging business.

In July 2002 Visy acquired Coca Cola Amatil’s PET bottle self-manufacturing assets for about $170 million, making Visy by far the market leader in the Australasian market.

In 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004, Visy was named Australia’s leading company for environmental performance in a national survey of Australia’s top 100 companies. In 2004 Visy received Australia most prestigious environment award, the Gold Banksia award and the Banksia Foundation’s Business Environmental Excellence and leadership award.

Through the Pratt Foundation, Richard Pratt and his family are among Australia’s major private philanthropists. In May 2004, Richard and Jeanne Pratt received the prestigious Variety International Humanitarian Award in recognition of their lifetime of philanthropy.

Richard has held many community positions including Foundation Chancellor of Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, President of the Victorian Arts Centre Trust and Chairman of the Australia Foundation for Culture and Humanities.

He holds Honorary Doctorates from Monash University and Swinburne University of Technology. Melbourne University has announced it will bestow as honorary doctorate on him in August 2004.

In recent years he jas focused his attention on finding ways for Australia to address the challenge of better managing its scare water resources.

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