Despite her busy schedule attending court hearings on legal disputes with her three estranged adult children and the heirs of her father's former business partner, Australia's richest woman Gina Rinehart geared herself for another battle.

This time her battle would be with the board of Fairfax Media where the owner of Hancock Prospecting wants to gain a director's seat. To back her move, Ms Rinehart - also the world's richest woman - went on a Fairfax share buying spree by reportedly purchasing on Thursday $25.2 million shares.

With her buy-in, Ms Rinehart upped her holding in the media firm by about 2 per cent to 15-16 per cent, making her the company's largest shareholder. Her purchase accounted for about half of the 78.7 million shares traded on Thursday, quadrupling the normal trading volume.

Her buy-in includes a single line of 42 million shares purchased at noon for 60 cents a share.

Apparently, the billionaire is leveraging her piles of cash to boost her holding in Fairfax Media through her reported appointment of brokers Bell Potter to purchase more stocks for Ms Rinehart to further increase her share to 19.99 per cent. That amount is the maximum holding allowed for a shareholder to make a takeover offer.

Ms Rinehart's transactions are expected to be confirmed soon since the law requires major investors to advise the stock exchange if they bought or sold over 1 per cent of the company within two days.

Her aggressive move is seen as the billionaire's response to Fairfax's snubbing her for a director's seat. The company board of directors appears to be apprehensive about Ms Rinehart using her seat to influence the newspaper's editorial policies.

Besides speaking against some government policies such as the mining tax and carbon tax, Ms Rinehart could use her influence as a shareholder to quash stories about her family legal disputes as well as new ones coming out.

Another shareholder, Allan Gray Australia, said the issue appears to be how the term editorial matters would be interpreted.

"She certainly should not be allowed to interfere in editorial matters when it clearly benefits her interests, but if she says there is an issue on the editorial side that needs to change to improve the business, it is her responsibility as a director to speak out," The Australian quoted Allan Gray Fund Manager Simon Marais.

Reports said that there is a growing support within Fairfax for Ms Rinehart to be taken in as director.

John Klepec, the chief development officer of Hancock Prospecting, said that the purchase of more shares is an indicator of investor commitment to a company. He pointed out that Fairfax Chairman Roger Corbett has only 99,206 shares and has not bought more stocks.

"If the chairman and board are true believers in the strategy to assist the company, surely they would have a reasonable percentage of their net worth in Fairfax and be taking opportunities to add to this when the opportunity arises," The Sydney Morning Herald quoted Mr Klepec.

Observers believe that if Ms Rinehart would launch a takeover bid and the offer goes for a vote, small retail shareholders would side with the billionaire.

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