The investor behind Dominion Voting Systems just bagged a 1,400% return after Fox News settled its defamation suit for $788 million
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- Dominion Voting Systems on Tuesday settled a defamation lawsuit with Fox News for $787.5 million.
- Staple Street Capital purchased a 76% stake in the voting technology company in 2018 for $38.8 million.
- The private equity firm is set to bag a whopping 1,442% return after the settlement.
Private-equity firm Staple Street Capital is looking at a massive windfall after Dominion Voting Systems settled a defamation lawsuit with Fox News for $787.5 million.
Staple Street Capital acquired a 76% stake in Dominion Voting Systems for $38.8 million in 2018, just two years before the company was caught in the middle of the 2020 Presidential election, in which former President Donald Trump and his allies falsely accused the voting technology company of rigging results in Joe Biden's favor.
A high-profile defamation lawsuit between Dominion and Fox News, which gave plenty of air time to the false accusations that Dominion rigged the 2020 presidential election results, was scheduled to begin yesterday until a settlement was reached right before the trial's opening statements.
Dominion initially sought $1.6 billion in damages from Fox News, but settled for about half that amount.
Assuming Staple Street Capital's 76% stake in Dominion didn't change since 2018, and that the firm's ownership stake gives it claim to a proportional amount of the lawsuit settlement, the investment firm is poised to see a $598.5 million payout, a return of 1,442% from its initial investment.
The potential gain for Staple Street from the Dominion/Fox News lawsuit was on the radar of employees at the investment firm. A text message between a former employee and Staple Street Capital vice president Dan Franklin was uncovered during the lawsuit, which said "would be pretty unreal if you guys 20x'ed your dominion investment with these lawsuits," the message said.
Fox News used Staple Street's ownership of Dominion against it, arguing that the sky-high damages sought by the firm was "nothing more than a money grab to satisfy Staple Street." But Fox ultimately acknowledged that "certain claims" made on its network about Dominion were false.
This might not be Staple Street Capital's last windfall from its stake in Dominion, as the voting technology company still has pending lawsuits against media firms Newsmax and One America News Network, as well as former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and lawyer Sydney Powell.
"It's not every day that an investment fund finds itself at the center of this type of dispute. For us this case has always been about exposing the truth and holding those who knowingly spread lies accountable," Staple Street co-founder Hootan Yaghoobzadeh said at a Tuesday press conference.