Waiting on the next move from Rinehart

Rinehart is not known as a broad-based portfolio investor. There is no evidence of her private company taking passive equity investments in a range of listed companies.

From this, it can only be concluded that she has a bigger plan and one that somehow dovetails into her recent acquisition of 10 per cent of the Ten Network.

There are two theories racing around the market about what Rinehart may be up to.

When she emerged on the Ten register immediately after James Packer and Lachlan Murdoch snared themselves an 18 per cent stake between them, it appeared that she was attempting to cash in on whatever plan the two media moguls were hatching.

Tales that she was captivated by Packer because of his rousing speech at a function for the radio personality Alan Jones seemed bizarre at the time and, quite frankly, still do. Maybe she associated with Packer as a kindred spirit - like her, he is the child of a forceful larger-than-life businessman.

To my mind, this all appears a little fanciful. She has had plenty of opportunity to bond with Packer before this but has never followed through by piggybacking his investments. In any event, this does not explain her foray into Fairfax.

The other theory espoused by the chattering classes is that she wants influence through the media. But this does not explain why she invested in Ten. It is a business that sells entertainment not influence.

Rinehart would get far greater bang for her buck investing in Fairfax if she wants to get a voice in Canberra. The fact she has taken an investment in both suggests there is a wider corporate agenda - one that has not yet been revealed.

In order to get any traction in either situation, she will have to find support. Ten per cent of Ten buys her little other than a poor dividend stream. If she, Packer and Murdoch are like-minded in their strategic plans for the network, she might get some traction.

Her current investment in Fairfax achieves even less. She needs to buy more, and the talk around town is that this is her intention.

However, in order to achieve any meaningful influence, Rinehart will need to increase her investment to a point where she can control the board and management.

At the very least, this would have to be close to 20 per cent.

Rinehart's family has some history in attempting to gain influence through media ownership. Her father, Lang Hancock, started his own newspaper in Western Australia - which was ultimately closed.

And there is no shortage of issues close to Rinehart's heart that she would now like to influence - two of which are the mining tax and the environment.

Putting these potential agendas to the side, the Rinehart strategy might just be a corporate play. At the time she, Packer and Murdoch moved into Ten, it was being eyed by private equity interests. It was vulnerable as its board had recently taken a high-risk strategy of investing big dollars in a digital sport channel and current affairs.

Similarly, Fairfax is at a crossroads, having just announced a new strategy aimed at addressing the structural problems of online competition, the legacy costs of producing and printing newspapers and migration onto new digital distribution platforms.

Fairfax is also without a permanent chief executive, having waved off Brian McCarthy on Monday.

Both Ten and Fairfax are exposed to opportunistic buyers at a time when the media industry is particularly fluid.

Rinehart's interest in both may suggest some kind of deal between the two. This is a deal that has been contemplated in the past but has never come to fruition.

There is also talk that her investment could be a precursor to a break-up of Fairfax - either a split of print from radio or even a spin-off of The Australian Financial Review.

All these theories are, at this stage, speculative. And Rinehart is giving nothing away.

But regardless of which theory you subscribe to, there has got to be more to come.