Who is Gina Rinehart?
Gina Rinehart is the Australian mining magnate who is executive chair of Hancock Prospecting, the privately owned iron ore company founded by her father, Lang Hancock. Forbes Australia’s real-time list valued her at $24.5 billion on 12 November 2026, and she tops Forbes Australia’s 50 Richest list for 2026, as she has every year since 2023 124.
How did Gina Rinehart make her money?
Through Hancock Prospecting and its iron ore projects in Western Australia’s Pilbara. After her father died in March 1992 she became executive chair of a company Forbes describes as financially distressed and rebuilt it. She acquired the Roy Hill tenements in 1993, and the Roy Hill mine began shipping ore in 2015. Hancock Prospecting also owns 50% of the Hope Downs mine, which Rio Tinto operates 25. Forbes says her fortune fell 15% to $24.6 billion in its 2026 Australian list after lower iron ore prices, and that Hancock raised its stake in the US rare earths company MP Materials to 8.4% 4.
Early life and education
Georgina Hope Hancock was born on 9 February 1954 in Perth, the only child of Lang Hancock and Hope Margaret Nicholas, and spent her early years on Pilbara cattle stations. She boarded at St Hilda’s Anglican School for Girls in Perth and left an economics degree at the University of Sydney in the early 1970s 5.
Hancock Prospecting and her investments
Forbes lists a rare earths portfolio, gas investments, Australia’s second-largest cattle business and the lithium miner Azure Minerals, which Hancock and Chile’s SQM bought in May 2024 in a $1.1 billion takeover 2. Read Gina Rinehart’s companies.
Family
She has four children, John, Bianca, Hope and Ginia, and was widowed in 1990. Wikipedia and Forbes record a long-running legal dispute over the family trust between Rinehart and two of her children, John and Bianca 256. See Gina Rinehart’s family.
Gina Rinehart net worth
Forbes Australia’s real-time list put her at $24.5 billion on 12 November 2026, about ₹2.3 lakh crore at ₹94 to the dollar, and Forbes’ World’s Billionaires list ranked her 101st with $25.5 billion on 10 March 2026 13. See Gina Rinehart net worth and our ranking of the wealthiest women in the world.