In March 2025, private company Hancock Prospecting, owned by Gina Rinehart, quietly restructured its American portfolio. According to regulatory documents from May 15, analyzed by Reuters, the total rebalancing amounted to $133 million — with $97 million going into defense company stocks.

What Was Bought and Sold

Hancock purchased shares in RTX, Northrop Grumman, L3Harris Technologies, and Lockheed Martin. Simultaneously, the company increased its stake in Canadian copper producer Hudbay Minerals by approximately 10% and added shares in gold miner Newmont. A separate document from May 14 showed that in the current quarter Hancock acquired 6.3% in Rare Earths Americas — a company developing rare earth element deposits in the United States.

At the same time, Hancock completely exited Chilean lithium producer SQM — despite jointly developing the Andover lithium project in Australia with them. This is not a partnership breakup, but a clear signal: a public stake in SQM no longer appears attractive.

"Hancock added defense, gold, and rare earth positions to its American portfolio worth $3.3 billion"

Reuters, May 18, 2025

Unexpected Angle: It's Not About Weapons — It's About Supply Chains

The combination in one quarter of defense + rare earth metals + gold is not coincidental. All three sectors share one logic: dependence on critical raw materials that the United States seeks to remove from Chinese control. RTX and Lockheed are direct consumers of rare earth elements in rocket and aircraft production. The stake in Rare Earths Americas is effectively a bet on American demand from that very same defense sector whose shares Hancock just purchased.

Rinehart has long been building positions in rare earth metals through Australian assets — notably, Hancock is the largest shareholder in Arafura Rare Earths with a stake exceeding 15%. Entry into the American rare earth market appears to be a logical expansion of this strategy to where state appetite is currently greatest.

Scale: $97 Million in the Context of $3.3 Billion

Defense purchases represent less than 3% of Hancock's total American portfolio. But the direction of movement matters more than the size: a company that grew on iron ore is systematically diversifying into assets that states consider strategic amid rearmament and fragmentation of global supply chains.

• RTX, Northrop Grumman, L3Harris, Lockheed Martin — $97 million (weapons and aerospace)
• Newmont — new stake (gold as a defensive asset)
• Hudbay Minerals — stake increase of ~10% (copper for energy transition)
• Rare Earths Americas — 6.3% (rare earth metals, critical raw material for defense)
• SQM — complete exit (lithium, Chile)

If Washington does launch a large-scale domestic rare earth extraction program — through subsidies or defense contracts — Hancock will find itself in the position of a raw material supplier to those very same companies whose stocks it just purchased. The question is whether American rare earth infrastructure will reach industrial volumes before the geopolitical premium in defense stocks begins to decline.