Billionaire Gina Rinehart has bought a bigger stake than her estranged son in his own company

Gina Rinehart has agreed to pay A$8.77 million for 13.5% of White Cliff Minerals, which makes her a larger shareholder than her son in a company he founded and has fought her in court for years.

Hancock Prospecting, the private mining group she runs, will take 515,791,601 new shares at A$0.017 each under a conditional placement announced on Sept. 15. The stock rose as much as 26.5% on the news to A$0.022, its highest since June, and closed the day up 17.7%.

John Hancock is a director and shareholder of White Cliff and founded it. He is her eldest child, is 50, lives in London, and has spent years in litigation against her over the family trust that holds a large stake in Hancock Prospecting, seeking to take control of it from her on behalf of himself and his three sisters, Bianca, Hope and Ginia. Forbes ranks him 2052nd on its 2026 billionaires list.

His mother is worth A$25.6 billion and is the richest person in Australia.

The money is going into the ground in northern Canada. White Cliff will spend it at the Rae copper project in Nunavut, drilling more densely at a target called Danvers 1 to support an exploration target and a first resource estimate, sinking step-out holes at Danvers 2 and Danvers 3, flying an airborne geophysical survey over sediment-hosted targets, and running downhole electromagnetic work around known mineralisation.

The cheque is larger than the company itself had in the bank. White Cliff reported A$8.34 million of cash at the end of June, alongside A$1.47 million of shares in Great Bear Exploration, and it spent A$2.18 million on exploration during that quarter alone. Hancock's commitment is roughly 105% of the company's reported cash position.

It is still a junior explorer with no earnings, negative cash flow and no proven resource.

What Rinehart is buying into is copper rather than the iron ore that built her. Demand has been rising with electrification and data centre construction, and Hancock Prospecting has been moving into new commodities and new jurisdictions for several years, having also taken positions in lithium including a stake in Liontown Resources during the Albemarle takeover attempt.

She inherited the business rather than starting it. Her father Lang Hancock founded Hancock Prospecting, she was his only child, and she took over as executive chairman when he died in 1992. Iron ore made her a billionaire by 2006, and she has since expanded into agriculture, media and other resources.

The placement is conditional on shareholder approval, and White Cliff has scheduled a meeting for mid-October. Existing holders keep 86.5% if it goes through.