Top 10 Facts About Gina Rinehart

Top 10 Facts About Gina Rinehart

Georgina Hope Rinehart is an Australian billionaire mining magnate, businesswoman and heiress. Rinehart is the Executive Chairman of Hancock Prospecting, a privately owned mineral exploration and extraction company founded by her father, Lang Hancock.

Rinehart was born on 9 February 1954 at St John of God Subiaco Hospital in Perth, Western Australia. She is the only child of Hope Margaret Nicholas and Lang Hancock. Until age four, Rinehart lived with her parents at Nunyerry. Her family then moved to Mulga Downs station in the Pilbara.

Here are the top 10 facts about Gina Rinehart.

1. Rinehart is Australia’s richest person

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website – www.dfat.gov.au, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Gina’s wealth reached around A$29 billion in 2012, at which point she overtook Christy Walton as the world’s richest woman and was included on the Forbes list of The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women. Forbes estimated her net worth in 2019 at US$14.8 billion as published in the list of Australia’s 50 richest people.

Her wealth was rebuilt again during 2020 due to increased demand for Australian iron ore, so that by May 2021, her net worth as published in the 2021 Financial Review Rich List was estimated in excess of A$30 billion, while in March 2021, The Australian Business Review stated her wealth equaled A$36.28 billion. Read more on 55 Most Influential Women Entrepreneurs. 

2. Rinehart dropped out of school to work for her father

Rinehart boarded at St Hilda’s Anglican School for Girls in Perth. She briefly studied economics at the University of Sydney, before dropping out and working for her father, gaining an extensive knowledge of the Pilbara iron-ore industry. 

3. Gina turned her father’s company into the largest private company in Australia

When her father died in 1992,  leaving a bankrupt estate,  she succeeded him as executive chairman. She turned a company with severe financial difficulties into the largest private company in Australia and one of the largest mining houses in the world.

When Rinehart took over Hancock Prospecting, its total wealth was estimated at A$75 million, which did not account for group liabilities and contingent liabilities. She oversaw an expansion of the company over the following decade, and due to the iron ore boom of the early 2000s became a nominal billionaire in 2006. 

4. Rinehart expanded her investments beyond the mining industry

In the 2010s, Rinehart began to expand her holdings into areas outside the mining industry. She made sizeable investments in Ten Network Holdings and Fairfax Media, although she sold her interest in the latter in 2015, and also expanded into agriculture, buying several cattle stations, and divesting them within a decade.

Ten Network Holdings Ltd, commonly referred to as Paramount Australia & New Zealand, is a major media company in Australia. Read more on 15 most famous business women in the world.

5. Forbes considered Gina Rinehart one of the world’s ten richest women

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website – www.dfat.gov.au, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

As of September 2020, Forbes considered Rinehart one of the world’s ten richest women. Rinehart was Australia’s wealthiest person from 2011 to 2015, according to both Forbes and The Australian Financial Review; and again in 2020 and 2021, according to The Australian Business Review and The Australian Financial Review. Read more on top 10 richest women in the world. 

6. Gina was an active supporter of the Westralian Secession Movement

In the 1970s, Rinehart was an active supporter of the Westralian Secession Movement, which her father had founded to work for the secession of Western Australia from the rest of the country. She also had some involvement with the Workers Party, later renamed the Progress Party, a libertarian organisation founded by businessman John Singleton.

Secessionism has been a recurring feature of Western Australia’s political landscape since shortly after the Federation in 1901. The idea of self-governance or secession has often been discussed through local newspaper articles and editorials. On a number of occasions, secession has been a serious political issue for the State, including in a successful but unimplemented 1933 state referendum.

7. Rinehart actively promotes the cause of development of Australia’s north

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website – www.dfat.gov.au, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Since 2010 Rinehart has been actively promoting the cause of development of Australia’s north and has spoken, written articles and published a book on this topic. Rinehart stresses that Australia must do more to welcome investment and improve its cost competitiveness, particularly when Australia faces record debt. 

Gina advocates a special economic zone in the North with reduced taxation and fewer regulations and has enlisted the support of many prominent Australians, plus the Institute of Public Affairs. In a 2012 article in the Australian Resources and Investment Magazine, Rinehart said that if people wanted to have more money they should “stop whingeing” and “Do something to make more money yourself, spend less time drinking or smoking and socialising, and more time working”. She criticised what she saw as the socialist policies of the Australian Government of high taxes and excessive regulation. 

8. Rinehart is a supporter of Donald Trump

Trump is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.

Trump is currently seeking reelection as the President of the United States of America in the 2024 poll. Gina Rinehart is a strong supporter of Trump.

9. Rinehart is a well-known Philanthropist

Rinehart is publicly known for visiting girls’ orphanages in Cambodia and is on the expert advisory board of SISHA, a Cambodian non-profit organization campaigning against human trafficking, in particular by rescuing and assisting sexually exploited women and children.

In 2022, Rinehart was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in the 2022 Australia Day Honours for distinguished service to the mining sector, to the community through philanthropic initiatives, and to sport as a patron.

10. Rinehart is the largest individual donor to Olympic sports in Australian history

In 2016 Rinehart also began to sponsor the Australian Rowing Team with a significant investment to improve direct financial athlete assistance for the Rio Olympic Games as well as for the four years, leading into the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. It is understood that the deal now also extends to Paris 2024. This further investment is said to make Rinehart the largest individual donor to Olympic sports in Australian history.