Gina Rinehart, Australia's richest person and now the largest individual shareholder in Fairfax Media, has visited the company’s headquarters in what has been called an “investor briefing”.

The publisher’s metropolitan dailies have reported that Rinehart talked to senior staff of the ‘Australian Financial Review’ during a tour of parts of the building.

She is understood to have met chairman Roger Corbett and chief executive Greg Hywood, and the business daily has since reported that she asked for a board seat.

She was accompanied on the visit by Hungry Jacks founder and Ten Network shareholder Jack Cowin, a personal friend and fellow West Australian.

The ‘Sydney Morning Herald’ quoted a Fairfax spokesman that Gina Rinehart “was offered an investor briefing and accepted”.

Having accumulated a shareholding of about four per cent in 2010 and 2011, the mining billionaire stunned swooped on the Australian stockmarket last month, lifting her interest to 12.6 per cent.

Coincidentally (we presume) today’s 'AFR' criticises treasurer Wayne Swan for his “rant against mining magnates” including Rinehart, Clive Palmer and Andrew Forrest.

Swan had “literally lost the plot” it said in a leading article.