These days it is not so uncommon to meet people who say they predicted Donald Trump was going to win well before the shock election.
One of the few people who can prove it though is the billionaire Australian businessman Anthony Pratt.
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Mr Pratt, executive chairman of the paper and packaging giant Visy, had been spending a good bit of time travelling through his company's mills and plants in the US midwest - the very states that eventually turned the election for Trump. Everywhere he went his staff told him they were going to vote for the reality TV star.
Mr Pratt began predicting Trump was going to win, but he was worried that after the fact nobody would believe he had called it, so he did the obvious thing and dropped $100,000 on a Trump victory with the TAB, netting himself a cool $450,000 payout after the election.
!["Never bet against America," Anthony Pratt said.](/web/20170309030401im_/http://www.canberratimes.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/u/2/3/6/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.guu4ql.png/1489020881059.jpg)
Addressing a business summit hosted in Sydney by the Australian Financial Review on Thursday morning, Mr Pratt outlined how Visy managed its massive United States growth, and how it came to have such close ties with the Trump administration.
One turning point came when George HW Bush scrapped laws that hampered the growth of recycling businesses - like Visy - from accessing the US paper market.
A second came in 2005 and 2006 when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and public concern about the environment was raised further by the documentary An Inconvenient Truth and the move The Day After Tomorrow.
WalMart responded by demanding its suppliers used more sustainable packaging and Visy suddenly found itself at the centre of a rapidly expanding industry.
![Anthony Pratt was one of the few people who can prove that he predicted Donald Trump would win the election.](/web/20170309030401im_/http://www.canberratimes.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/t/x/3/5/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.guu4ql.png/1489020881059.jpg)
As it built a network of mills and plants around the country Mr Pratt developed relationships with governors who competed ruthlessly to host them. One of those governors was Mike Pence, now the Vice President.
Mr Pratt said that the US was now enjoying a renaissance in manufacturing as businesses have begun "onshoring" plants from China back to the US in response to increasing wage costs in China and falling energy prices in the US.
![Anthony Pratt, left, speaking at the AFR Business Summit on Thursday.](/web/20170309030401im_/http://www.canberratimes.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/u/2/4/6/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.guu4ql.png/1489020881059.jpg)
He said so great was Visy's use of energy that it was constantly looking to reduce its own usage, shutting down idle equipment and even installing its own solar arrays.
He said America's greatest natural resources was its entrepreneurial spirit, the tendency of everyday Americans to risk taking out a mortgage on their own home to start a small business.
"Never bet against America," he said.