Darwin Deason (born 1940) is an American billionaire businessman and political donor. He founded

Affiliated Computer Services Affiliated Computer Services Inc. (ACS) was a company that provided information technology services as well as business process outsourcing solutions to businesses, government agencies, and non-profit organizations. ACS was based in Dallas, Texas ...

in 1988, and sold it to

Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (ha ...

for $6.4 billion in 2010, becoming

' largest individual shareholder (6%, as of 2016).

Career

Deason grew up on a farm near

Rogers, Arkansas Rogers is a city in Benton County, Arkansas, United States. Located in the Ozarks, it is part of the Northwest Arkansas region, one of the fastest growing metro areas in the country. Rogers was the location of the first Walmart store, whose cor ...

. He moved to

Tulsa, Oklahoma Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with ...

after graduating from high school, and he got a job at

Gulf Oil Gulf Oil was a major global oil company in operation from 1901 to 1985. The eighth-largest American manufacturing company in 1941 and the ninth-largest in 1979, Gulf Oil was one of the so-called Seven Sisters oil companies. Prior to its merger ...

. Deason got a job for a data processing company, and eventually took control of a struggling Dallas company that he renamed MTech. After selling MTech, Deason founded

in 1988. ACS became one of the first companies to outsource office work to places outside of the United States. The company went public in 1994. Deason retired as CEO of the company in 1999, but remained chairman. In 2007, Deason attempted to buy control of ACS with the help of

Cerberus Capital Management Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. is an American private equity firm,Leaders Magazine"Providing Economic Opportunity: An Interview with The Honorable Dan Quayle, Chairman, Cerberus Global Investments, LLC". specializing in distressed investing. ...

, but the deal collapsed and members of the A.C.S. board resigned in protest. In 2009, Deason negotiated a deal to sell A.C.S. to

. Shareholders sued Deason due to the premium that Deason received in the deal, but the sale went through in 2010. In October 2016, Darwin Deason sued Xerox to block a restructuring plan that would reverse the $6.2 billion takeover of ACS, arguing the deal would lead his assets to live off low-growth, unattractive assets, whereas his deal with Xerox implied getting a share of Xerox' investment-grade business. Xerox has announced its plan to split its operations into copier and printers on one end, and business process outsourcing on the other (to become

Conduent Conduent Inc. is an American business services provider company headquartered in Florham Park, New Jersey. It was formed in 2017 as a divestiture from Xerox. The company offers digital platforms for businesses and governments. , it had over 31 ...

Inc). By the end of October 2016, the feud was settled: Darwin Deason got 180,000 shares of Xerox's preferred stock and 120,000 preferred shares of Conduent.

Political activity

Deason and his family donated $250,000 to support Rick Perry's 2012 presidential candidacy. In October 2015, Darwin Deason backed

Ted Cruz Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz (; born December 22, 1970) is an American politician and attorney serving as the junior United States Senator from Texas since 2013. A member of the Republican Party, Cruz served as Solicitor General of Texas from ...

for the 2016 campaign Deason also donated $5 million to support Perry's 2016 presidential candidacy. After Perry dropped out of the race, Deason asked for his money back. Deason's son, Doug Deason is a member of the

Koch Brothers The Koch family ( ) is an American family engaged in business, best known for their political activities and their control of Koch Industries, the 2nd largest privately owned company in the United States (with 2019 revenues of $115 billion). ...

political network. During the 2017 attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Doug Deason told Senator Mitch McConnell and other senior Republicans that they would not make political contributions if Congress did not reduce taxes and repeal the

Affordable Care Act The Affordable Care Act (ACA), formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and colloquially known as Obamacare, is a landmark U.S. federal statute enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by Pres ...

. Between 2017 and June 30, 2019, Deason donated $1 million to the

America First Policies America First Policies is an organization created following the inauguration of Donald Trump in 2017 to promote the America First policy agenda of his administration. It was founded by Trump campaign people including Nick Ayers, Rick Gates, and ...

-tied America First Action super PAC.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Deason, Darwin Living people 1940 births American billionaires People from Rogers, Arkansas Businesspeople from Dallas Texas Republicans