Australian Woman on Pace to Pass Carlos Slim as the Richest Person in the World

From the Wealth Report:

...As we’ve written before, the number of women on the Forbes list of richest Americans has fallen by half since 1986. And of the 1,000 people on Britain’s Rich List, only 105 are women.  It seems more likely that a woman will become President before a woman tops any of the world’s rich lists (the former being far more important than the latter).

Yet now comes news that the richest person in the world may one day soon be a woman. More specifically, an Australian woman.

According to a report from Citigroup cited in the Australian press, mining heiress Georgina “Gina” Rinehart is “on course to overtake” Carlos Slim as the richest person in the world if commodity prices keep rising.

The report, which mainly looks at 400 of the world’s top mining projects, says that Ms. Rinehart’s  three coal and iron ore projects are among the 10 most promising mining projects in the world, and could catapult her to the top of the rich heap.

An Australian business website said that if Ms. Rinehart’s private company –- Hancock Prospecting — were publicly traded, she could have a current net worth of $30 billion, putting her in the top 10 globally. Based on the mine outputs and commodity prices, her annual profits could reach $10 billion a year and her net worth could approach $100 billion, according to the analysis....MORE