Billionaire miner Gina Rinehart has denied any current plan to join with Rupert Murdoch's nephew Matthew Handbury in a partial bid or full takeover of Fairfax Media.
There have been persistent rumours for about a year, and it's said Mr Handbury has led the push, seeking funding from wealthy backers for a potential bid.
Mrs Rinehart is Australia's richest person and the largest shareholder in Fairfax Media, publisher of The Age, Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian Financial Review, with a 14.99 per cent stake.
Jason Morrison, spokesman for Mrs Rinehart, said there was "nothing going on with Hancock [Prospecting, Mrs Rinehart's company] and Fairfax other than maintaining the stake in the company."
Mrs Rinehart has been a vocal critic of the company's board, particularly its long-serving chairman Roger Corbett, for refusing her several seats on the board because she declined to adhere to the Fairfax Media charter of editorial independence.
The charter states that owners must not interfere with editorial and gives editors full editorial control and the ability to hire and fire. Mrs Rinehart's friend Jack Cowin sits on the Fairfax board as an independent director.
Mr Handbury has a long history in publishing, buying Murdoch Magazines from Rupert Murdoch in 1991 and selling it to Seven West Media in 2004. He also showed interest in buying Nine Entertainment's ACP Magazines.
There is no indication that Mr Handbury's Murdoch cousins are involved in a bid, one source said. They include Rupert Murdoch's son Lachlan, the News Corp non-executive co-chairman who sits alongside Mrs Rinehart as an investor in and director of Ten Network.
But a Handbury-backed Fairfax would place him in direct competition with News Corp Australia, the country's biggest publisher.
While iron ore prices are not expected to return to the the highs of the past five years, Hancock's flagship Roy Hill project will start exporting in one year.
Mr Handbury has recently denied plans of any kind of takeover and on Tuesday declined to comment on "speculation".
The 63-year-old established a company called Brontenews in April. He recently praised the performance of cousins Elisabeth, Lachlan and James Murdoch and said News Corp was "exactly where [executive chairman] Rupert would like it to be."
While Mr Handbury was widely respected for leadership at Murdoch Magazines, Fairfax Media, which owns real estate classified business Domain, radio station 3AW and is seeking to reduce its reliance on the structurally challenged print industry, is a different beast.
It has been hard hit by the loss of lucrative classified revenue to online-only rivals Carsales, Seek and REA Group, and has lacked the financial firepower of News Corp Australia, which is nonetheless feeling the brunt of declining circulation and revenue.
Domain is seen as a growth asset for Fairfax, and a possible spin-off, although chief executive Greg Hywood has said it is not for sale.
Shares in Fairfax are up 31 per cent this year to 84¢, taking its market capitalisation to $1.98 billion. A 30 per cent premium suggests a bid priced at $1.09 a share.
The rumoured play comes as the government defers a planned relaxation of media ownership laws that were likely to prompt a spate of mergers. The government had called for agreement among media companies - a hard ask in a famously political and ego-driven sector.
Nine Entertainment, with whom Fairfax recently created a $100 million video-streaming joint venture, has been named as a potential merger partner for Fairfax, although its chief executive David Gyngell has insisted it is not interested in print.
Institutional investors are wary of structurally challenged media industries such as print, although private equity is one potential acquirer of the one-time cash cow.
The two main investors in TV company Nine Entertainment - hedge funds Apollo and Oaktree - are now able to sell their combined 36 per cent stake in the business.
Any change of ownership would likely throw into doubt the Fairfax Media charter of editorial independence. This charter is unusual in that the Fairfax Media board doesn't control the company's content, although Fairfax has long argued the separation is key to its integrity and high levels of readership.
A privatisation of Fairfax Media, whose revenue and share-price decline has been well documented in a series of books, would relieve it of reporting its results each quarter during the structural shift from print and a splintering of the advertising market.
But media experts stress that any new leadership must be skilled, and changing the top brass should be driven by improving performance. Staff would likely also be concerned at the prospect of cost-cutting and job cuts if additional publications were closed and more assets were sold off.
Fairfax's radio assets - Melbourne's 3AW and Sydney's 2UE - have long been linked to a merger with John Singleton's Macquarie Radio, a friend of Mrs Rinehart's, who declined to comment.
Mrs Rinehart also sought to sue Fairfax business columnist Adele Ferguson for stories Ms Ferguson had written about her.
Fairfax Media declined to comment.
