Iron Will: Australia’s Richest Person Counts the Cost as Court Orders She Share Mining Millions with Rival Family

THE GUARDIAN: Gina Rinehart, who’s been called Australia’s ‘female Donald Trump’, has long fought claims from the family of her father’s business partner – as well as her own children

Screenshot taken from this Guardian article. | Mining billionaire Gina Rinehart has political connections in the Trump White House and Australia’s parliament. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
Australia’s richest person is reeling after a landmark court decision found her company must pay royalties worth hundreds of millions of dollars to a rival mining dynasty.

Gina Rinehart, a multibillionaire with political connections in both the White House and the Australian parliament, has been described by members of the US conservative movement as “a female Donald Trump”. The 72-year-old, who inherited her father’s iron ore empire in Australia’s Pilbara region, has fought multiple claims against the family company Hancock Prospecting that were first launched in 2010.

On Wednesday, in the Western Australian supreme court, Justice Jennifer Smith found that Wright Prospecting was entitled to its claim for a half share of royalties coming from one of the region’s largest projects – Hope Downs.

Hope Downs is a joint venture between Rio Tinto and Hancock Prospecting and exports about 45m tonnes of iron ore annually from Australia’s north-west each year.

But Hancock Prospecting had a partial victory, with the court rejecting Wright Prospecting’s claim for an equity stake in other mining assets.

The dispute harks back to a business partnership struck in the 1950s by mining prospectors Lang Hancock and Peter Wright. The pair had been school friends and together established a company called Hanwright which was responsible for pegging out vast tenements of iron ore-rich deposits in the region’s Hamersley Range. » | Sarah Martin | Saturday, April 18, 2026

Full Story Posdcast HERE.

World's Richest Woman Calls for Australian Workers Wage Cut
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: The world's richest woman, mining magnate Gina Rinehart, has sparked a political storm by saying that Australian workers should take a wage cut to be more competitive with African workers on $2 a day.


In a rare public appearance, Gina Rinehart said in a video posted on the website of the Sydney Mining Club that Australians should not be complacent about mining investment when African workers were willing to work for $2 a day. » | Wednesday, September 05, 2012

Gina Rinehart Sells Down Interest in Fairfax Media

THE GUARDIAN: Mining magnate reduces interest in Australian publisher Fairfax Media to 15% after sale of 86.5m shares

Australian mining magnate Gina Rinehart has reduced her stake in Fairfax Media, publisher of the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age newspapers, less than three weeks after she increased her investment in the group.

Minutes after the close of trade on the Australian stock market on Thursday, Rinehart sold 3.7% of the business to a major Australian fund manager, reducing her ownership in Fairfax Media to 15%.

The 86.5m shares sold were worth A$50.1m (£33.0m). Rinehart remains the largest shareholder.

A statement by Rinehart's company, Hancock Prospecting, said that the sale was completed to "esolve an issue that arose concerning the directors and officers insurance policy, in the situation of a director having a greater than 15% shareholding in Fairfax.

"This was one of the key issues recently raised by the chairman of Fairfax and needed to be resolved by either the chairman authorising endeavours to raise the 15% limit, which has been able to be reasonably achieved by other companies, or, as also discussed with the chairman, by sale of shares so that the largest shareholder had less than 15%," said the statement by chief development officer, John Klepec. » | Alison Rourke in Sydney | Thursday, July 05, 2012

THE GUARDIAN: Gina Rinehart issues ultimatum to Fairfax chairman: Largest shareholder tells Roger Corbett to improve share price or resign, but media group dismisses her 'bid for editorial control' » | Alison Rourke in Sydney | Friday, June 29, 2012

Related »

Gina Rinehart Threatens to Sell Stake in Fairfax Unless Given Editorial Influence
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: The world's richest woman, Gina Rinehart, has publicly threatened to sell her stake in Fairfax, Australia's oldest media company unless she is allowed direct influence over editorial decisions.

The Australian billionaire mining magnate, a staunch conservative who does no media interviews, has branded herself as a "white knight" trying to rescue the ailing – and liberal-leaning – Fairfax Media.

Mrs Rinehart recently moved to a 19 per cent stake in the company, just short of the 20 per cent mark at which she would have to launch a formal takeover bid. She has been vying for three board seats but has insisted that she should not have to abide by the company's charter of editorial independence.

In a statement to ABC Television, her company, Hancock Prospecting, said Mrs Rinehart was a potential saviour of the company and had started buying shares after its three biggest mastheads suffered long-term circulation declines. » | Jonathan Pearlman, Sydney | Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Related »

Australian Broadsheets Switch to Tabloids in 'Momentous' Shake-up
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Two Australian broadsheets, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, will move to a tabloid format, slash staff, charge for online content and could potentially stop printing altogether in a "momentous" shake-up of Australian media.

The move came as Gina Rinehart, the world's wealthiest woman, positioned herself to gain control of the owner of the newspapers, Fairfax Media, which is the main Australian rival to Rupert Murdoch's newspaper stable.

Mrs Rinehart, the Perth-based iron ore magnate whose staunchly conservative political views stand in stark contrast to those of Fairfax's main newspapers, is the largest single shareholder and has reportedly asked for the right to hire and fire editors.

Fairfax on Monday announced it will cut 1900 jobs – more than a fifth of its workforce – over the next three years and close its two main printing presses in New South Wales and Victoria by 2014.

The Sydney Morning Herald, which began publishing in 1831, and The Age, which began in 1854, will shrink to "compact" size next March and erect pay-walls on their websites following a continuous decline in print readership since 2006.

"Readers' behaviours have changed and will not change back," said the company's chief executive, Greg Hywood. "The days of the huge printing plants, built for our legacy print classified business, are well and truly over." » | Jonathan Pearlman in Sydney | Monday, June 18, 2012

THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD: Rinehart steps up Fairfax board battle » | Kirsty Simpson | Monday, June 18, 2012

Australian Mining Magnate Becomes World's Richest Woman
The richest woman in Australia is now the richest woman in the world. Mining magnate Gina Rinehart is number 1 on the world's female rich list, thanks to a fortune worth 29 billion dollars. Andrew Thomas has the story.

WIKI: Gina Rinehart »