Rinehart and Singleton announce alliance to target Fairfax Media
Fairfax Media looks set to face another year of ownership turmoil with Gina Rinehart and John Singleton announcing that they plan to work together.
Rinehart – whose fortune comes from the mining industry – has so far been rebuffed from a place on the board of the media company despite building a holding which reached around 15% of the company before she reduced it.
Meanwhile, Singleton’s attempt to buy Fairfax’s radio assets last year, eventually failed. Singleton is one of the owners of Macquarie Radio Network which owns Sydney’s number one talk station 2GB.
Now Rinehart’s company Hancock Investing and the Singleton-led Gutenberg Investments will work together. A formal announcement will be made to the ASX on Monday. Singleton has accused the board of having a “lack of direction”
Two boys meet in a pub. Possibly one they own. They get p#ssed and start talking about things they’d like to do. Why not buy some Fairfax shares and call Gina? Then we can get legal advice to say we are associates. Then we can put out a press release in the most boring news days of the year. Then people will put stories on page one (The Oz, MumBrella, etc).
All this says is that no one thinks Fairfax is managed by credible people and certainly not people with any clout. (And by the way, did anyone notice Corbett’s Xmas gift? His board seat at WalMart ranks with one of the world’s most embarrassed after they had to admit to extensive bribes in growing their store numbers in Mexico etc).
Ship of fools raided by drunks and grumpy people. How sad.