The Ascent of Ginia Rinehart to the Family Business Empire

Ginia Rinehart is probably the 2010 decade's new icon of wealth, comparable to what Christina Onassis was in the 1970s and 80s.

At age 25, Ms Rinehart is set to become the sole heir of the richest person in Australia with $10 billion to her name. However, it would not come easily because of court cases from her siblings who are locked in a legal battle with their mother, Gina Rinehart.

At the rate court battles among the Rineharts are taking place, the family would be a good fodder to make a 2010 version of the 1980s hit TV show Dynasty. They have all the elements of a good modern-day soap opera - family dispute over wealth, tons of money, boardroom wars and court battles.

However, the family has actually been trying not to wash their dirty linen in public with the matriarch seeking a court order to keep proceeds of a legal battle secret. However, toward the end of December, New South Wales Court of Appeals Justice Tom Bathurst said a suppression order sought by the Rineharts was not in line with open justice system. On Friday, the NSW Court of Appeal is set to issue a decision on the suppression order sought by Gina.

The legal battle is between Gina and Ginia on one side, and the rest of Ginia's siblings on the other side. Hope Rinehart Welker, Bianca Hope Rinehart and John Langley Hancock sought to remove their mother to head the family trust which controls 25 per cent of the family fortune set up by mining magnate Lang Hancock. The children cited her alleged misconduct.

For her loyalty to her mother, youngest child Ginia Hope Frances Rinehart was rewarded with appointments to the family's mining companies.

On Dec 5, Ginia was named director of Hancock Prospecting, replacing Terry Walsh, despite her apparent limited experience in the mining industry. She was also appointed director of Hope Downs Marketing Company, a joint venture with Rio Tinto which operates the Hope Downs project in Pilbara that produces 30 million tonnes of iron ore yearly.

The new director would sit on the same board with senior Rio Tinto Iron Ore officials such as Greg Lilleyman, Paul Shannon and Warwich Smith, along with her mother and Hancock executive Tad Watroba.

Ginia likewise took over from sister Bianca, who was removed from the board of HMHT Investments, a key company of the Rinehart family. Bianca and John, before their falling out with their mother, were being groomed to take over the family business which includes ventures in Western Australia and Queensland and stakes in the Ten Network and Fairfax Media.

Bianca, 33, who was last known to live in Darwin, resigned as director in 2008 in several Rinehart companies such as Roy Hill, Mulga Downs Iron Ore, Minerals Australia, Hancock Coal and Hancock Energy. She is still a director at Hancock Prospecting, but is believed to have no role in the firm.

Bianca and John, 36, are children of Mrs Rinehart's first marriage to Englishman Greg Hayward, while Hope, 26, and Ginia are her offspring from her second marriage to American lawyer Frank Rinehart, who died in 1990.

John, after his falling out with Gina, changed his family name to Hancock from Rinehart in the early 2000s. Hope married American businessman Ryan Welker and lives in Sydney.

When Gina Rinehart inherited Hancock Prospecting from her father, it was debt laden, but she turned it around into a highly profitable company through concentration on iron ore projects in Western Australia and royalty payments negotiated by her father with mining firms.

A new research by Citigroup said that Gina, who at 57 became the first woman to head the BRW rich list after her wealth doubled to $10.3 billion over the past years, could one day become the world's richest person because of Hancock Prospecting.

The report was based on evaluation by Citigroup of 400 mining projects around the world that are not yet in production but are in the design/approval stages. Hancock was fifth on the list, after BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Xstrata and Anglo American.

She is set to become the richest person because she owns the companies while other firms have stockholders to share the wealth.

Mrs Rinehart has three projects in the top 10, these are the Roy Hill iron ore in WA slated to begin production in 2013 at 55 million tonnes a year production, the Alpha Coal in Queensland, also scheduled to start in 2013 and produce 30 million tonnes of coal, and Kevin's Corner coal in Queensland which will start production of 30 million tonnes of coal in 2013.

She had the fortune of inheriting everything from her father because Gina was an only child. While Ginia had three other siblings, it appears that history would repeat itself because of the court battles among the Rineharts with the youngest child standing to benefit the most from the sibling dispute as well as Gina's business acumen and Australia's mining boom.