Australia's interest in Gina Rinehart, the nation's richest woman, continues to be fueled following her soon-to-be-completed acquisition of shares in Fairfax Media. Ms Rinehart, whose personal wealth is valued at $10.3 billion, wants a biiger piece in Australia's most influential media company.

Reports said that Ms Rinehart upped her share by 5 per cent. Including her 10 per cent share of Ten Network which she purchased in November 2011, Ms Rinehart now owns 14 per cent of the media company which makes her Fairfax's biggest shareholder with a 14 per cent stake.

Morgan Stanley is handling the transaction of 235 million shares on behalf of mining magnate Rinehart in a transaction that could be worth about 192.2 million Australian dollars (US$204.1 million), Dow Jones newswires also indicated.

Fairfax Media is the publisher of major dailies in Australia such as The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian Financial Review. It also owns a national radio network based on 2UE-3AW and various rural publications. The company's capitalization is at $1.74 which makes the owners one of the richest families in Australia.

However, the Herald Sun describes the Fairfax business empire as a 20th century dying company with just one major asset, the Australian Financial Review. The newspaper recounted that Fairfax was very profitable in the 1980s when it was fat with assets and profits.

Media analyst Peter Cox views Ms Rinehart's entry into media as the billionaire's way of boosting her influence on the nation, besides the power she already yields in the mining industry.

"There's no way you'd be buying into either Ten or Fairfax as a financial investment for the future in the media," Mr Cox told ABC Radio.

"What's the point of spending that money on it if you're not going to have influence?" he asked.

Industry observers opined that Ms Rinehart may use her media stake in speaking against the government's mineral resources rent tax and carbon tax. They view the entry of columnist Andrew Bolt, a personal favourite of the billionaire, into Ten's Sunday morning TV show, as an indicator of her growing influence in media.

Opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey finds nothing wrong in Ms Rinehart's buy-in at Fairfax. He said that in the end it does not matter who owns the media firm since Fairfax has a strong board and editorial independence.

However, financial analyst Tim Treadgold pointed out that Ms Rinehart could purchase outright Fairfax if she wants to due to the very substantial cash flow she gets from Hope Downs mine and recent sale of assets which boosted her cash assets to $3 billion.

Alan Kohler, in an opinion piece for Business Spectator, wrote on Tuesday that Ms Rinehart would need to buy a 51 per cent stake in Fairfax to get Mr Bolt into the company's major dailies. Buying 234 million Fairfax shares at 81.8 cents per share is a risky business move, Mr Kohler contends.

One other possible explanation is that the billionaire - who is touted to become the richest person in the world since Hancock Prospecting is not a publicly listed company which means she does not share the firm's wealth with shareholders - may be trying to stifle media publication of her family drama.

After all, she initially sought a court order to keep secret proceeds of a legal battle with three of her children. Ms Rinehart is locked in a bitter court dispute with daughters Hope Rinehart Welker and Bianca Hope Rinehart, and son John Langley Hancock, who sought her removal as head of the family trust that controls 25 per cent of the Hancock money set up by the deceased family patriarch.

On Ms Rinehart's side is youngest daughter, Ginia, whom she appointed to various influential posts in the family companies.

With her recent acquisition into Fairfax and the ongoing court battles with her children, Ms Rinehart's name would likely remain a fixture in Australian media, whether in Fairfax or other newspapers and broadcast firms owned by other media moguls, observers said.

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