Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting adds defence stocks to US portfolio

Reuters | May 18, 2026 | 8:09 am Critical Minerals Markets Australia USA Gold Rare Earth

Gina Rinehart enters rare earths business in Brazil

Gina Rinehart is Australia’s richest person. (Image: Gina Rinehart website)

Hancock Prospecting, owned by Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, has added defence, gold and rare earths holdings to its $3.3 billion US portfolio this year, filings showed on Monday.

Hancock added CrowdStrike, L3Harris, Lockheed, Northrop Grumman and RTX as part of a $133 million portfolio shift towards defence firms and gold in March, according to a filing from May 15.

The company also added major gold producer Newmont. Hancock Prospecting has also taken a 6.3% stake in Rare Earths Americas in the current quarter, a separate filing from May 14 showed.

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Hancock boosted its position in copper producer Hudbay Minerals by around 10% and sold all its holdings in Chilean lithium producer SQM, with which it is developing the Andover lithium project in Australia.

Its main holdings remain in tech exchange-traded fund Invesco’s QQQ Trust and US rare earths producer MP Materials, which together made up 47% of the portfolio’s weighting at the end of March, Reuters calculations show.

(By Melanie Burton; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus)