"Someone said to me recently that Visy is the only company looking forward to the arrival of Amazon," he told his employees, in a speech Pratt tweeted about the same time that Trump was disbanding his two business councils. Visy billionaire Anthony Pratt with Donald Trump in New York earlier this month. Pratt – who made $400,000 betting on Trump's election victory and has received accolades from the US President over Visy's growing business in the US – was canny enough to not join either council. "Boxes should be a big beneficiary of the boom in online retailing. And that puts Visy in a great place," he said.

"In a gold rush, sell shovels," added Pratt, who dared imagine a time when all that empty space in the Amazon box delivered to customers is "ripe for digital printing" with personal messages such as: "Happy birthday, Mike." We assume the latter was a shout out to US Vice-President Mike Pence, who was also a big fan of Pratt's when he was Indiana governor and a big beneficiary of Visy's US expansion. Pratt has received praise from the US President. Credit:Anthony Pratt Happy anniversary QBE CEO John Neal says he needs more time. Credit:Peter Braig

It was five years to the day since John Neal joined insurer QBE, and it was not a happy anniversary as the market looked at the group's half-year results on Thursday and dumped the stock. K2 Asset Management's David Poppenbeek did not hold back when questioning the CEO at the analyst briefing. Poppenbeek mentioned Neal's vision, from five years ago, to be the most successful insurer in the world for operational excellence. He also mentioned that pay packets for the executive team over the past five years have been a globally excellent $20 million a year. But its performance against global peers – in Aussie dollar terms – had lagged severely. "What are they doing that QBE is not doing?" he asked. Macro factors have changed significantly, replied Neal, adding: "It's difficult to do the [global] benchmark."

It did not seem to satisfy Poppenbeek, who repeated that QBE's global peers had outperformed it ten-fold over the period. Neal tried a different tack: "I think it's different start points," he said, adding: "Our opportunity this year ... we think is greater than theirs in terms of outperforming from here." Poppenbeek decided it was time to put in the dagger: "Is there any chance that in regard to operational excellence that you're actually not operationally excellent, and that you've got the wrong people or you've got the wrong businesses and that somebody else should be doing it better?" Neal affirmed that the insurer has got the right processes, people and businesses, and "the job is not finished in that respect". "Five years on, John," was the damning reply from Poppenbeek.

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