Gina Rinehart, Australia’s wealthiest woman, has emerged as a major beneficiary of global tensions over rare-earth elements, amassing the world’s largest portfolio of rare-earth investments outside China, according to Bloomberg. Her holdings in companies such as Lynas Rare Earths, MP Materials, and Arafura Rare Earths have surged in value to $1.8 billion, pushing her net worth to $32.9 billion. The rise reflects growing international efforts to reduce dependence on China, which controls around 70% of global rare-earth production and 90% of the magnets essential for technology and defense. Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting has strategically expanded into projects in the US, Brazil, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia, aligning with government-backed initiatives and benefiting from Pentagon and US funding. While not all her ventures have been profitable, her rare-earth investments position her at the center of a geopolitical scramble for critical minerals. They write:
Half a world away from the White House and its strategic-minerals spat with China, an Australian Trump devotee has emerged as one of the dispute’s most emphatic winners.
From her base in Perth on Australia’s remote western seaboard, Gina Rinehart has amassed the world’s largest portfolio of rare-earth element investments outside of China, more than two decades after making her first fortune in the raw-material supply chain for steel.
The value of Rinehart’s stakes in four rare-earth companies alone has surged to $1.8 billion, lifting her net worth to $32.9 billion, an all-time high on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. […]
In the commodities world, Kelly said her rare-earths holdings are comparable to smart bets on precious metals by Canadian billionaire Eric Sprott, a legend in precious metal circles for his bold and well-timed bets on gold and silver.
Rinehart is one of the biggest investors in Las Vegas-based MP Materials Corp. and the second-largest shareholder in Australia’s Lynas Rare Earths Ltd., the sector’s two most important producers outside China. […]
Beyond Saudi Arabia’s investments in its own resource development, the Trump administration’s injection of funds into MP Materials is a template likely to be followed by other governments seeking to lessen dependence on China, though the investments will probably be smaller, said Tania Constable, CEO of the Minerals Council of Australia lobby group.
“We’ll see more of it,” Constable said in an interview. “It’s not going to match the US, but it doesn’t have to.” […]
She has many investments in this sector, and I see us as just one part of her big vision to position herself in rare earths,” Southey said. “And we’re very thankful for that.”
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