Aussie billionaire Gina Rinehart's rare earth bets lose $478 million in value

The value of Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart's rare earth investments has fallen by an estimated A$680 million ($478 million) over the past year, as shares of MP Materials and Lynas Rare Earths have dropped.

The decline is a paper loss on shares Rinehart's Hancock Prospecting still holds, not a loss from selling them, according to the Australian Financial Review. MP Materials accounts for about two-thirds of the drop, and most of the rest comes from Lynas.

MP Materials shares have lost more than a third of their value over the past year and closed at $45.43 in New York on Tuesday. Lynas shares have fallen 19% over the same period to A$13.64.

Hancock's stake in MP Materials is still worth about $834 million, based on the latest US filings cited by the Financial Review. MP shares soared in 2025 after the company signed a multibillion-dollar agreement with the Pentagon, then gave back much of that gain.

That deal included a $400 million investment by the US Defense Department, a 10-year minimum price for MP's neodymium-praseodymium products and a decade-long commitment to buy magnets from the company's planned 10X manufacturing plant. MP runs the Mountain Pass rare earth mine in California, the largest in the US.

Rinehart, the executive chairman of Hancock Prospecting, built her fortune on iron ore in Western Australia's Pilbara region, where her father, Lang Hancock, founded the company. She has spent the past few years putting money into minerals tied to electric vehicles, defense and clean energy. Rare earth investments now make up about 10% of her fortune, which Forbes estimates at $25.1 billion. She also holds positions in lithium and copper.

Her rare earth push began in earnest in April 2024. Hancock disclosed a 5.3% stake in MP Materials, a holding valued at about $212 million at the time. Days later, it revealed a 5.82% stake in Lynas, the largest rare earths producer outside China. The two purchases came shortly after Lynas and MP ended talks about a merger, and they led analysts to speculate that Rinehart could push the two companies back together. No deal has followed.

The two companies give Hancock exposure to the biggest rare earth producers outside China, which controls most of the world's mining and processing of the metals. Lynas mines rare earths at Mount Weld in Western Australia and processes them in Malaysia. It is also building processing capacity in the US. Rare earths are used to make the powerful magnets found in electric vehicle motors, wind turbines and missiles.

Hancock has also taken positions in smaller companies that are still developing their projects. It holds shares in Arafura Rare Earths, which is building the Nolans project in Australia's Northern Territory. It also invested A$22.5 million for a 6.24% stake in St George Mining, which is developing the Araxá rare earths and niobium project in Brazil. Those holdings could deliver larger returns than MP and Lynas, but they depend on the companies raising money, building their projects and securing processing capacity.

The rare earth losses are not the first time one of Rinehart's minerals bets has turned against her. In 2023, Hancock spent about A$1.2 billion building a 19% blocking stake in lithium developer Liontown Resources, stopping a takeover by US chemicals giant Albemarle. Liontown shares later fell well below the roughly A$3 a share that Hancock paid.

Supply of the metals remains a central issue between Washington and Beijing. After President Donald Trump met Chinese President Xi Jinping in September, the White House said the two countries were still working on US concerns about shortages of rare earths and other critical minerals.

Rinehart's family is backing the strategy. John Hancock, her eldest child and a director of White Cliff Minerals, one of his mother's more recent investments, has supported her rare earth bets, though he has said copper is the mineral best placed to benefit from rising demand.