Gina Rinehart made her billions

Gina Rinehart was born in 1954 and is one of Australia’s wealthiest people. She is an heiress and mining magnate. She is the chairman of the mineral exploration and exploration company founded by her father, which is called Hancock Prospecting.

She is routinely listed on ‘wealthiest Australians’ lists and is known as one of the richest women in the world. She grew up in Perth and had an average life until she dropped out of her studies at the University of Sydney to work alongside her father at Hancock Prospecting. As the only child of her father, she inherited her dad’s amazing 76.6% investment share and she succeeded her father as executive chairman of the firm after his death in 1992. The remaining company shares were transferred into a trust account for her four children.

She oversaw a rapid expansion of the Hancock Prospecting company after her father’s demise and capitalised on the 2000s boom in iron ore, becoming a billionaire by 2006. Gina Rinehart later mad investments in the media, such as with Fairfax and Ten Network Holdings.

She was the wealthiest person in Australian from the years of 2011 to the year 2015. Her total wealth reached its peak in 2012 when she had a net worth of $29 billion. At this point she became the richest woman in the world, overtaking Christy Walton.

Due to a slowdown in the mining industry within Australia, Gina Rinehart’s wealth has dropped. Despite this, her accumulated fortunate is still formidable.

In the 1970’s she was a strong supporter of the Westralian Secession Movement that was founded by her father. The sentiment of the movement was that Western Australia made the most money for Australia but got the least rewards for it and wanted to correct that.