Fidelity National Financial, Inc. Q3 FY2025 Earnings Call

Good morning, and welcome to FNF's third quarter 2025 earnings call. During today's presentation, all callers will be placed in a listen-only mode. Following management's prepared remarks, the conference will be open for questions with instructions to follow at that time. I would now like to turn the call over to Lisa Foxworthy-Parker, SVP, Investor in External Relations. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Operator, and welcome, everyone. I'm joined today by Mike Nolan, CEO, and Tony Park, CFO. We look forward to addressing your questions following our prepared remarks. F&G's management team, including Chris Blunt, CEO, and Connor Murphy, President and CFO, will also be available for Q&A. Today's earnings call may include forward-looking statements and projections under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, which do not guarantee future events or performance. We do not undertake any duty to revise or update such statements to reflect new information, subsequent events, or changes in strategy. Please refer to our most recent quarterly and annual reports and other SEC filings for details on important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. This morning's discussion also includes non-GAAP measures, which management believes are relevant in assessing the financial performance of the business. Non-GAAP measures have been reconciled to GAAP, where required, and in accordance with SEC rules within our earnings materials available on the company's investor website. Please note that today's call is being recorded and will be available for a webcast replay. And with that, I'll hand the call over to Mike Nolan.

Thank you, Lisa, and good morning. We delivered strong third-quarter results across both our title business and F&G segment, demonstrating the power of our complementary businesses and our ability to execute in dynamic market conditions. Our title business delivered outstanding results given the low transactional environment. I'd like to start by thanking our employees for their unwavering focus on meeting our customers' needs regardless of the environment while continuing to deliver industry-leading performance. We delivered adjusted pre-tax title earnings of $410 million, an $87 million or 27% increase over the third quarter of 2024, and an adjusted pre-tax title margin of 17.8%, up 190 basis points from 15.9% in the third quarter of 2024. These results reflect strong performance across the business, including commercial and refinance, as well as our centralized and home warranty operations. Additionally, our disciplined expense management throws strong incremental margins. Looking at our title results more closely, starting with purchase, we continue to see normal seasonality and daily purchase orders opened with an 8% sequential decline. Within the quarter's results, however, we saw daily purchase orders opened in September higher than August. This is atypical, and due to the modest downward trend in mortgage rates during the quarter, which we believe is indicative of the pent-up demand for housing. Our daily purchase orders opened were, in line with the third quarter of 2024, down 8% from the second quarter of 2025, and for the month of October, down 2% versus the prior year. Refinance volumes have been responsive as 30-year mortgage rates decreased by 30 basis points during the third quarter. This generated an increase in refinance orders opened to $1,600 per day in the third quarter, up from $1,300 in the sequential quarter. Our refinance orders opened surged to $2,100 per day in the month of September, reflecting how refinance volumes can change with moves in rates. Our refinance orders opened per day were up 15% over the third quarter of 2024. up 22% over the second quarter of 2025, and for the month of October, up 27% versus the prior year. For commercial activity, we deliver direct commercial revenue of more than $1 billion in the first nine months of 2025, up 27% over $801 million in the first nine months of 2024. We have a strong inventory of deals to close and are on track to deliver our third best commercial year ever, trailing only the exceptional markets of 2021 and 2022. Notably, this was our best third quarter in history, with a 34% increase in commercial revenue over the third quarter of 2024. This was driven by a 38% increase in national revenues and a 29% increase in local revenues. In particular, national daily orders opened were up 11% over the third quarter of 2024. We now have six consecutive quarters with double-digit growth in national daily orders opened. Local market daily orders opened were up 5% over the third quarter of 2024. Total commercial orders opened were 856 per day, up 8% over the third quarter of 2024, in line with the second quarter of 2025, and for the month of October, up 8% versus the prior year. Diving deeper into commercial, we continue to see broad-based activity across several asset classes that are driving growth, including industrial, multifamily, affordable housing, retail, and energy. What makes this year even more remarkable is that we're achieving these results with minimal contribution from the office sector, which remains subdued but is showing signs of improvement. We have also seen a 22% increase in commercial refinance orders opened in the first nine months of 2025 over the prior year. Overall, we remain bullish on commercial, and office is a potential added element into 2026. Bringing it all together, total orders opened averaged 5,800 per day in the third quarter, with July and August each at 5,500 and September at 6,300. For the month of October, total orders opened. We're over 5,600 per day, up 8% versus the prior year. Overall, our title business is performing well in what is still a low transactional environment. Our seasoned management team has a proven track record of managing our business to the trend in open orders and varying economic conditions. This discipline has generated a steady level of free cash flow, allowing us to continue to invest in our business through attractive acquisitions and technology as we manage the business and continue to build for the long term. Turning now to some updates on our technology initiatives, our Inherit Digital Transaction platform provides an enhanced and reinvented customer experience as it continues to scale. During the third quarter, Inhere engaged 85% of residential sales transactions and reached more than 860,000 unique users, demonstrating deep integration into daily workflows. We continue to enhance our identity verification processes and technology to streamline and secure customer authentication. These initiatives help combat the rise in impersonation and wire fraud in property sales, and they complement our existing efforts to deliver the most trusted, efficient, and fully digital closing experience nationwide. We have deployed AI tools enterprise-wide, integrating practical tools into daily workflows to enhance productivity and margin efficiency. With thousands of employees now actively engaging with AI through structured training, pilot programs, and targeted departmental adoption, we are building a sustainable AI fluency across our organization. At the same time, we strengthen our governance, privacy, and security foundation, helping to ensure that our innovation agenda continues to be executed with discipline, scalability, and long-term value creation in mind. Over time, we believe that our ongoing investments in technology, combined with our robust curated data, will lead to increased efficiency and productivity in our operations that will continue to support our market-leading pre-tax title margin. Turning now to our F&G segment, F&G's assets under management before flow reinsurance have crossed the $70 billion milestone at the end of the third quarter and were up 14% over the prior year forward. We remain pleased with F&G's performance and foresee plenty of opportunities to grow and increase the value of the business. On a standalone basis, F&G reported gap equity excluding AOCI of $6 billion at September 30th and has grown its book value per share, excluding AOCI, to $44.07, up 61% since the 2020 acquisition. With that, let me now turn the call over to Tony to review F&F's third quarter financial performance and provide additional insights.

Thank you, Mike. Starting with our consolidated results, we generated $4 billion in total revenue in the third quarter. Excluding net recognized gains and losses, our total revenue was $3.9 billion, as compared with $3.3 billion in the third quarter of 2024. The net recognized gains and losses in each period are primarily due to mark-to-market accounting treatment of equity and preferred stock securities. whether the securities were disposed of in the quarter or continue to be held in our investment portfolio. We reported third-quarter net earnings of $358 million, including net recognized gains of $176 million, versus net earnings of $266 million, including $269 million of net recognized gains in the third quarter of 2024. Adjusted net earnings were $439 million, or $1.63 per diluted share, compared with $356 million, or $1.30 per share, for the third quarter of 2024. The title segment contributed $330 million. The F&G segment contributed $139 million. and the corporate segment had a net loss of $1 million before eliminating $29 million of dividend income from F&G in the consolidated financial statements. Turning to third quarter financial highlights specific to the title segment, our title segment generated $2.3 billion in total revenue in the third quarter, excluding net recognized losses of $38 million compared with $2 billion in the third quarter of 2024. Direct premiums increased 19% over the prior year. Agency premiums increased 13%. And escrow, title-related, and other fees increased 9%. Personnel costs increased 11%. And other operating expenses increased 4%. All in, the title business generated adjusted pre-tax title earnings of $410 million compared with $323 million for the third quarter of 2024 and a 17.8% adjusted pre-tax title margin for the quarter versus 15.9% in the prior year quarter. As Mike said earlier, these results were driven by strong performance across the business as well as disciplined expense management. Our title and corporate investment portfolio totaled $4.8 billion at September 30. Interest and investment income in the title and corporate segments was $109 million, up 6% versus the prior year quarter, and excluding income from F&G dividends to the holding company. The current period includes growth in 1031 exchange and other escrow balances and a benefit from a legal settlement. Looking ahead, we expect quarterly interest and investment income to trend down from the $109 million in the third quarter to around $100 million in the fourth quarter, and then decline around $5 million in each subsequent quarter through 2026, assuming an additional 75 basis points of Fed rate cuts over the next nine months. In addition, we expect approximately $30 million per quarter of common and preferred dividend income from F&G to the corporate segment. Our title claims paid of $58 million were $12 million lower than our provision of $70 million for the third quarter. The carried reserve for title claim losses is approximately $52 million, or 3.1% above the actuary's central estimate. We continue to provide for title claims at 4.5% of total title premiums. Next, turning to financial highlights specific to the F&G segment. Since F&G hosted its earnings call earlier this morning and provided a thorough update, I will provide a few key highlights. F&G's AUM before-flow reinsurance increased to $71.4 billion at September 30. This includes retained assets under management of $56.6 billion. F&G's gross sales were $4.2 billion. F&G generated core sales of $2.2 billion, which includes indexed annuities, indexed life, and pension risk transfer, and had $2 billion of MIGA and funding agreements, two products we view as opportunistic depending on economics and market opportunity. Net sales retained were $2.8 billion compared to $2.4 billion in the third quarter of 2024. This reflects flow reinsurance to third parties as well as F&G's new reinsurance sidecar, which was effective August 1st. Adjusted net earnings for the F&G segment were $139 million in the third quarter, compared with $135 million for the third quarter of 2024. F&G's operating performance from their underlying spread-based and fee-based businesses continues to be strong. F&G continues to provide a complement to the title business, with the F&G segment contributing 32% of F&F's adjusted net earnings for the first nine months of 2025. From a capital and liquidity perspective, F&F continues to maintain a strong balance sheet and balanced capital allocation strategy. F&F continues to return excess cash to shareholders through share repurchases and has remained active throughout the third quarter and into the fourth quarter. During the third quarter, we repurchased 631,000 shares for a total of $37.5 million at an average price of $59.37 per share. We have returned capital to our shareholders through common dividends and share repurchases combined of $627 million year-to-date, including $172 million in the third quarter. From a capital allocation perspective, we entered 2025 with $786 million in cash and short-term liquid investments at the holding company. During the first nine months, the business generated cash to fund our $406 million quarterly common dividend paid, $62 million of holding company interest expense, $150 million investment in the F&G common equity raise, and $221 million in share repurchases. all while keeping pace with wage inflation and funding the continued higher spend in risk and technology required in today's landscape. We ended the quarter with $733 million in cash and short-term liquid investments at the holding company, up 26% from $583 million at the end of the second quarter. this concludes our prepared remarks and let me now turn the call back to our operator for

questions thank you before opening for questions i'd like to turn the call back over to mike nolan

for some additional remarks thanks operator we issued a press release this morning announcing that our board of directors equity ownership to increase fng 18 today broadening investor tangible and meaningful return thank you at this time we'll be conducting a question and answer

session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for your questions. First questions come from the line of Bo's George with KBW.

Please proceed with your questions. Hey, guys. Good morning. In terms of the you know, the spin of the 12% to F&G, could you have spun the whole piece out tax-free? And then does the spin of this 12% as a taxable dividend, you know, change your ability to dividend the remainder tax-free?

You can add in a meaningful, you know, again, there will need to get additional flux in

its future growth.

Okay, great. And then actually, just switching to the just the commercial business, you know, just given the strength there and what you guys saw this quarter and just looking out based on your pipeline, et cetera. I mean, do you think 2026 could end up matching the peak years, 21, 22?

It's a great question. The range of outcomes, I would say yes. We just had consecutive quarter into 26, commented on that. That could be just an added to say, yes, there could be a better

21 and 22. Okay. Helpful callers. Thanks. Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Terry Ma with Barclays. Please proceed with your questions. Hey, thank you. Good morning.

Maybe just to follow up on, you know, the FG distribution, you called out some other options, maybe just kind of outline those options. And then it also sounds like from your comments, And you obviously like FG kind of longer term. Does this kind of change? Like, is it your intention to kind of hold the asset kind of longer term, I guess, is the end of the day? And if so, like, why would you call out, like, other options kind of available to you?

Well, you know, Terry, I think we do like the asset and continued growth. I think, you know, it's unquestioned. The company has transformed and performed exceedingly well. We'd like to pivot to capital light. Anything's on the table.

Got it. That's helpful. And then maybe just on the title margin this quarter of 17-8, I think last quarter you guys called out a number of things, including higher investments in security and recruiting. I guess maybe just update us on that. Was there any impact to the margin from those initiatives this quarter, and how should we kind of think about the margin as we go through the end of the year and into next year? Thank you.

Thanks, Terry. I'll let Mike talk about the outlook, if you will, in addition to the month of the year.

Businesses like Home Warranty, I mean, we have modestly better margins than we'll probably do this fully. Many have been saying, look, next year, it's just tough to predict. But if we get a better purchase environment next year, we already talked about possibly a better commercial environment. And then refi is the one that's really rate dependent out in the opener. Got it.

Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Our next questions come from the line of Mark DeVries with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your questions.

I just wanted to clarify, Tony, your response to Bose's question on the spin. Did you indicate that, you know, now that you'll be dropping below 80 percent, that if you were to elect to do a subsequent distribution, that that would not be tax-free? Did I hear that right? Just given that, could you talk a little more about how you landed on 12% as being the right number, particularly since you kind of lose that optionality going forward?

You know, yeah, no, I mean, from an F&F perspective, it's quite meaningful to us on the FG side,

a billion dollars, which is great, and yet I think still.

And then turning to the commercial side, Mike, could you give us some perspective on, you know, If you think about pre-pandemic, how big of a contributor was Office and how much of a tailwind could that have to your commercial business if that starts to normalize?

2015 and 2016, in markets like New York, there were some just major transactions and things like that. So I'm sure on that. That's helpful.

Is there any margin difference in Office compared to your other commercial businesses?

No, I think it's all just about the particular transactions.

Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Mark Hughes with Truist Securities. Please proceed with your questions.

Yeah, thanks. Good morning. The earnings from equity investments were pretty good this quarter. What was that, and is that sustainable?

A bucket in that bucket, so you'd keep that.

Yeah. What was the actual order count, daily count for refis in October?

They did come off just a bit. Yeah, that was the question. Thank you. I'm trying to refi orders. Yeah, hopefully I got it right.

Yeah. You made a point about commercial refi. What was that point? How big is it relative to the overall mix, and is there any particular trend there?

I think the point is it shows that maybe –

And then you had mentioned in here that 85% of orders were engaged. Could you expand on that? And is that to say that in the large majority of orders, it's being used, but maybe it could be used more fully if it's engaged? What's the level of engagement?

Really what it refers to, Mark, is that when we open and open unique users.

And this will conclude our question and answer session. I would now like to turn the conference back over to CEO Mike Nolan for closing remarks.

Thanks for joining our call. this morning. Together, the combined business continues to deliver industry leading margins in the spread Thank you for attending today's presentation

and the conference call has concluded. You may now disconnect.