Georgina Hope Rinehart AO is a multibillionaire Australian entrepreneur and mining mogul who was born on February 9, 1954. Her father, Lang Hancock, created the privately held mineral exploration and extraction business Hancock Prospecting, of which Rinehart is the executive chairman. Rinehart was raised in the Pilbara area after being born in Perth, Western Australia. After attending St. Hilda's Anglican School for Girls on a boarder basis, she briefly attended the University of Sydney before discontinuing her studies to join her father at Hancock Prospecting. When Lang Hancock passed away in 1992, she took over as executive chairman. She was Lang Hancock's only child. She transformed a business that was having serious financial issues into one of the biggest mining firms in the world and Australia's largest private enterprise.
Early Life , Education & Career
At Perth, Western Australia's St. John of God Subiaco Hospital, Rinehart was born on February 9, 1954. Lang Hancock and Hope Margaret Nicholas only have one child together. Rinehart lived with her parents at Nunyerry, 60 kilometres (37 miles) north of Wittenoom, until she was four years old. Later, her family relocated to the Pilbara's Mulga Downs station. At St. Hilda's Anglican School for Girls in Perth, Rinehart later boarded. Before quitting to work for her father, she briefly studied economics at the University of Sydney, where she gained in-depth understanding of the Pilbara iron-ore business. In Australia's history, one of the most prosperous private enterprises has been a result of Rinehart's reconstruction of HPPL.
At the age of 19, Rinehart worked in Wittenoom when she met Greg Milton from England. Milton now uses the older family name Hayward as his last name. John Langley and Bianca Hope, their children, were born in 1976 and 1977, respectively. The pair was divorced in 1981 after separating in 1979. She wed business attorney and Arco executive Frank Rinehart in Las Vegas in 1983. Hope and Ginia, their twins, were born in 1986 and 1987, respectively. Frank Rinehart was awarded a Harvard fellowship for his work in the US Army Air Corps at the time. In addition to studying engineering and working two full-time jobs in addition to two part-time ones, he graduated first from Harvard College and then from Harvard Law School.
Since 1992, Rinehart and her stepmother Rose Porteous have been engaged in a judicial battle over Hancock's demise and insolvent estate. In the end, it took 14 years to resolve the conflict. Mrs. Porteous attempted to claim that the mining tenements, which HPPL retained, were not property of the corporation.
A plan to rename a mountain range in her family's memory received approval from the Western Australian state government in 1999. Hancock Range, which honours the family's role to the development of the pastoral and mining industries in the Pilbara area, is located about 65 kilometres (40 mi) north-west of the town of Newman at the coordinates 23°00′23′′S 119°12′31′′E. John Rinehart, Rinehart's son, changed his last name from Hayward, his birth name, to Hancock, his maternal grandfather's last name, in 2003 when he was 27 years old. Since 2014, Rinehart and her son John have struggled to get along, and she chose not to attend his wedding to Gemma Ludgate. Bianca Hope Rinehart, John's sister, who had been expected to take over the family business, served as a director of Hancock Prospecting and HMHT Investments up until October 31, 2011, when Ginia Rinehart took her place. In 2013, Rinehart was absent from Bianca's Hawaii wedding to her lover Sasha Serebryako. Hope, the other daughter of Rinehart, wed Ryan Welker; the couple separated while still residing in New York. Rinehart attended the nuptials of both of her younger daughters.
Career In Business
After her father passed away in March 1992, Rinehart was named executive chairman of the HPPL Group of enterprises and Hancock Prospecting Pty Limited (HPPL). The group's businesses are all privately held. Lang Hancock's mining efforts were mostly focused on exploration and the acquisition of sizable mining leases, with the significant exception of beginning to receive a royalty stream from Hamersley Iron in the late 1960s. While Rinehart benefited from her father's royalty agreements, according to BBC writer Nick Bryant, she "transformed the family business by spotting, earlier than most, the vast potential of the China market." After applying for the Roy Hill tenements five months after her father's passing, Rinehart was granted them in 1993. She then concentrated on developing the undeveloped Roy Hill and Hancock Prospective deposits, raising money through joint venture partnerships, and converting the leases into mines that generated income.
Net worth
One of Australia's wealthiest individuals is Rinehart, whose net worth was estimated by Forbes to be US$14.8 billion in 2019 and by The Australian Financial Review to be A$37.41 billion in 2023, making her the richest Australian according to the 2023 Financial Review Rich List. One of the richest women in the world, according to Forbes, is Rinehart.