AUSTRALIA (From the The Australian Financial Review) -- Anthony Pratt has struck a groundbreaking deal for his private manufacturing giant Visy Industries to raise $150 million in long-term debt from two Australian superannuation funds.

AustralianSuper, the country's biggest industry super fund and IFM Investors, a fund manager, have agreed to lend the money to cardboard box maker and paper recycling firm Visy over 10 years in a deal led by Westpac Banking Corporation's Institutional Bank. The money will be used to refinance existing senior debt.

The move, one of the first struck by a large, privately owned Australian company with super funds, mirrors the deals Mr Pratt has clinched for more than $500 million worth of debt via the private placement market or green bonds in the United States during the past two decades to fuel the rapid growth of Visy's sister company Pratt Industries.

"We think we are one of the first to do this and we absolutely want to do more," Mr Pratt told The Australian Financial Review. "It is a good deal for us and it is great to have an alternative source of funding given we are a private company and don't have access to the equity markets. In the US, this sort of funding almost acts as quasi-equity."

Mr Pratt will appear at The Australian Financial Review Business Summit in Sydney on Thursday, where he will discuss the success of Visy and Pratt Industries, which has built or owns dozens of paper mills and recycling plants in the American heartland states that voted for Donald Trump in last year's US election.

"In the US, basically 100 per cent of our debt is long-term and fixed. In Australia we have about 40 per cent of our debt fixed and long-term, and I would like to get that to 70 per cent over time."

Westpac Institutional Bank chief executive Lyn Cobley said the deal demonstrated the strategic and diverse options currently available in the broader debt markets. "We are introducing customers to more strategic opportunities to take advantage of diversity, pricing and tenure.

"Over the last few months alone this includes the private placement for Visy, a debut Euro bond for a New Zealand-based government customer and a sizeable Hong Kong debt for a large Australian utility."

Mr Pratt revealed Visy had clinched the super deal after about 12 months of talks, having first started raising the topic with institutions 15 years ago.

"This a good deal for us as banks usually are lending to corporates on five- to six-year terms. It is good for Westpac, too, as it helps them with their capital requirements and frees up some money to lend to households. And we have the super funds, which are awash with cash, so I hope this leads to similar deals as we have done in America."

Having moved to the US in mid-2001 to look after a family business that then consisted of a single, ageing paper mill in Macon, Georgia, Mr Pratt now oversees a business employing more than 5800 people across the US and one that is now the fifth-largest in its sector. The former Indiana governor and now vice-president Mike Pence opened a new Pratt $US1 billion paper mill near Chicago last year.

"We have built three of the last four big paper mills build in our industry," Mr Pratt said. "To give you an idea of the potential there, we are accounting for about 0.1 per cent of the manufacturing sector, worth $US2.2 trillion there. So there is scope for us to grow.

"Last year was a record year for us there, and America is booming for business right now. And we are very optimistic about what the Trump administration is doing there."