Stewart Information Services Corp (STC) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Hello, and thank you for joining the Stewart Information Services Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, you will have an opportunity to ask a question during the question and answer session. Instructions will be given at that time. Please note today's call is being recorded. Lastly, if you should require operator assistance, please press star zero. It is now my pleasure to turn today's conference over to Brian Glaze, Chief Accounting Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you for joining us today for Stuart's third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. We will be discussing results that were released yesterday after the close. Joining me today are CEO Fred Eppinger and CFO David Heise. To listen online, please go to the Stuart.com website to access the link for this conference call. This conference call may contain forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Please refer to the company's press release and other filings with the SEC for a discussion of the risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially. During our call, we will discuss some non-GAAP measures. For reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures, please refer to the appendix in today's earnings release, which is available on our website at Stuart.com. Let me now turn the call over to Fred.

Thank you for joining us today for Stuart's third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Yesterday we released the financial results for the quarter and I will kick off today's call with an overview of our outlook for housing followed by a review of our performance for the period and strategic direction broadly by business. I will then turn the call over to David so he can provide further commentary on our performance for the quarter. In the third quarter, the market began to set a new lower bottom for residential housing, market primarily driven by the rapid escalation in the 30-year mortgage rate throughout the quarter. In August, the 30-year rates moved higher than the same period year prior, and a rapid increase continued rates around 7.5% into October. As I've seen in the past few years, buyers will very quickly move to the sidelines in a situation where rates meet or exceed 7% or when rates move up very quickly. In Q3, we experienced both these scenarios, resulting in a below $4 million existing home sales for two of the three months in the quarter, A decrease of about 3% to 4% year-over-year in August and September. We believe the residential market conditions will continue to decay into the next quarter. Considering this outlook, we will be very focused on managing our business investments and expenses while continuing to capitalize on some of the market opportunities this disruptive market will create. In the third quarter, we delivered adjusting earnings per share of $1.33. Year-to-date, total operating revenue was up 22%, and adjusted EPS growth was up 8%. For the quarter, growth slowed to 13%, and adjusted EPS delivery was below last year's third quarter, as we saw a decreased margin of some of our businesses due to rapidly decreasing residential volume of historic lows. Our national commercial services business continued to deliver solid performance with overall commercial growing 90%. While the growth was less than our recent earn rate, our order growth is strong and our competitive position continues to improve. We did see a number of closing shifts in the fourth quarter, which is not uncommon in the changing market. We continue to be very positive on our improving competitive position and our future growth opportunity. In the third quarter, we also welcomed our title to the family, expanding our commercial energy and infrastructure team capabilities for servicing the telecommunications space. The acquisition of best-in-class talent has remained our strategic growth priority for the National Commercial Services, and the addition of Tower Title as well as the strategic highs we executed last quarter will help us further bolster this business for the long-term success as these new highs ramp up in their seats and begin to convert business in the coming quarters. We have had a lot of momentum in this space in the last three years, and we will continue to encounter some tough comparables for ourselves given the outside growth we've had. Overall, we will be positive on the large commercial and continue to see growth across multiple asset classes, though that growth is often lumpy given the timelines and transaction sizes. Our direct operations bear the brunt of the slowing residential market and drove the majority of our margin reduction in title. Overall, our direct title operation business unit consolidated residential refinance to mainstream commercial by 1% in the second quarter compared to the same time frame last year. We saw residential volumes decrease by 3% and refi shrink 7%. That was offset by our mainstream commercial delivering 11% growth. Our growth plan for this business remains focused on strengthening our position and attractive MSAs through organic and inorganic efforts and continue to grow mainstream commercial. In 2026, we have seen more opportunities present themselves in attractive geographies. Given market conditions, we will still focus on pursuing these opportunities, but we are sharpening our pencils even further to ensure they fit in our long-term financial goals. In the third quarter, we announced the acquisition of Ratican Title, one of the oldest and well-respected title agencies in Texas servicing Fort Worth. This transaction is a great example of a strong strategic fit for Stewart, and it strengthens our position in the Dallas-Fort Worth marketplace, giving us a Fort Worth stronghold. Our centralized title operations, which are included in our direct title revenue summary, includes our centralized refinance, institutional business, and reverse business. In the third quarter, we welcomed ProTitle USA and DocuSolutions USA to this organization. The addition of these companies, along with our existing offerings, expand our scale in the title services for investors and capital market clients. In the third quarter, we grew this business 20%. Finally, moving to our international operations, we focused on profitably growing our business. In the third quarter, we saw a slight deceleration of our non-commercial revenue by 1%. However, we have grown our revenue in this business unit by 4% year-to-date, which is solid during the Canadian residential marketplace that's been decelerating the existing home sales since September of 2025. On the commercial front, we delivered $7.3 million in revenue, consistent sequentially with the second quarter. up behind the third quarter of 25 as we had a handful of very large transactions that closed the third quarter last year. We believe we are on the right track in our international operations and we will continue to build on the strong positions of these markets and continue to grow share. Turning to agency services, in the third quarter, we saw net revenues by 11% compared to the third quarter of last year. We are pleased with this given that the agents confront the same challenge to residential market as our direct operations. We are focused on growing this business through winning the business with new agents and expanding wallet share of existing agents, with the emphasis on 15 target states in addition to the expansion of our commercial footprint for agents. We continue to make good progress of these priorities with residential premiums up 7% and commercial premiums up 25% in the third quarter when compared to the same time frame last year. As mentioned last quarter, we took advantage of some market disruption and expanded our agency team, which we have and will continue to see the benefit of as they ramp up and settle into their positions. While increasing market challenges will put pressure on future growth, we believe our ability to shift shares should continue. Turning to our real estate solutions business, in the third quarter, we grew revenue by 68% and 7% after removing the impact of two acquisitions we made this year, MCS and NAND. Our adjusted pre-tax margin slipped from 11.3% last year to 10.5% this year. The margin was driven by a significant slowdown in orders and revenue from existing accounts in informative research, our credit data business, and in appraisal. From a strategic perspective, we may focus on continuing to expand our coverage and servicing of the top 300 lenders. Our suite of products and services is in a good position in giving us even a great ability to cross-sell through a business. I am pleased that we are able to maintain our double-digit margins in these conditions and believe we will get to low to mid-teens margin delivery to the execution of our strategic priorities and a more stable residential market environment going next to this. I believe we are setting a new floor in the residential market that will likely continue into the next quarter. We will react to market changes by taking needed actions, but we'll be careful to retain the resources needed to serve our clients and react to opportunities I believe will come from this disruption. We remain focused on being a resilient company that has a growing portfolio of operations that will deliver share growth and improving larger performance over the next two to three years. Thank you for your time, attention, and interest in Stuart. As an enterprise, we are dedicated to being the premier title in real estate services company. I'm proud to share that in the third quarter, we delivered our seventh dividend increase in just under six years, raising our annual dividend from $2.10 a share to $2.20 a share. We are committed to strengthening and growing the company for continued long-lasting success while confronting the company. To our customers and agents, thank you for your trust and dedication to Stuart. We are committed to serving you with excellence. And to the Stuart team, I want to thank you for your dedication and perseverance. It takes considerable effort to grow a company and even more so to confront such a challenge in residential housing conditions. Thank you for your commitment to the company. I look forward to seeing where we can take this company together. So, David, I'll now turn it over to you to provide an update on those results.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you, Fred.

I want to thank our employees and customers for their continued support and partnership as we navigate this even more challenging real estate market with early mortgage rates over 7% since mid-September. Yesterday, Stewart reported third quarter 2026 net income of $30 million, with diluted EPS of $0.98 compared to the prior year's quarter net income of $44 million and diluted EPS of $1.55. On an adjusted basis, third quarter net income was $41 million or diluted EPS of $1.33 compared to net income of $47 million or diluted EPS of $1.64 last year. Appendix A of our press release shows adjustments to our consolidated segment results, primarily related to acquired intangible immunization, acquisition-related expenses, and not-realized and unrealized gains, which were used to evaluate operating performance. In the title segment, operating revenues increased 31 million or 5 percent, primarily driven by higher agency and direct commercial revenues. Title operating expenses increased 6%, primarily due to higher revenues and higher employee costs related to select growth investments while beginning to address the market transition, as Fred spoke about. Title pre-tax income in the third quarter was $47 million compared to $62 million last year, while on an adjusted basis, pre-tax income was $52 million compared to $61 million last year. In our direct title business, direct title revenues increased $6 million or 2% primarily due to increased commercial transactions. Domestic commercial revenues increased 7 million or 9% as closed orders improved 18% across multiple asset classes, while average fee-for-file decreased 8% to $16,300 due to reduced transaction sizes with less data center and energy activity. Domestic non-commercial revenue increased slightly by $3 million or 2 percent. Internal international revenues were down $4 million or 10 percent, due primarily to a large commercial transaction last year. On our agency operations, credit agency revenues increased 25 percent or $25 million or 7 percent, reflecting growth across a majority of our key agency states, including Florida. Net of agent retention agency revenues improved 5 million or 8 percent compared to last year. On title losses, title loss expense for the third quarter increased primarily due to higher title revenues, while the title loss ratio was 3.4 percent comparable to last year. We expect our higher losses to average from mid 3% to 4% over a year. In our real estate solution segment, total revenues increased 80 million or 68% primarily driven by the MCS acquisition and growth in our credit information evaluation services operations. Res adjusted pre-tax margin increased by 7 million or 56% compared to 13 million last year while adjusted free tax margin was 10.4 percent complete to 11 percent last year. On our consolidated operating expenses our employee cost ratio improved to 26 percent compared to 27 last year primarily due to higher operating revenues while the other operating expense ratio increased to 29 percent compared to 24 percent primarily due to revenue growth in our real estate solution segment, which typically incurs higher service costs as a percent of revenue, and as our real estate solution segment grows as a percentage of total revenue. Our financial position remains solid and well-positioned to support our customers, employees, and the real estate market. Total cash and investments is approximately $300 million in excess of statutory reserve fund requirements. Total Stewart stockholders' equity was approximately $1.7 billion, representing book value of approximately $55 per share. Net cash provided by operations was $47 million compared to $93 last year, primarily due to lower net operating income and timing of payments related to operating liabilities. Again, thank you to our customers and employees for their continued support. We remain confident in our ability to serve the real estate markets. I will now turn the call over to the operator for questions.

Thank you. If you'd like to ask a question, press star 1 on your keypad. To leave the queue at any time, press star 2. Once again, that is star 1 to ask a question. Our first question today comes from Bose George with KBW. Your light is open.

Good morning. Actually, first, just on the commercial side, so you guys noted some timing in terms of deals getting pushed out. Can you help quantify that? And also, are you seeing any broader signs of slowdown in the commercial pipeline, either on higher rates or specifically for the data centers, anything just related to political opposition at the local levels?

Yeah. So it's multiple millions that pushed those. So it was meaningful to the quarter. And again, there's no indication it won't close in the fourth quarter, but there was some movement. But our pipeline, interesting enough, our pipeline, and you can see from the open orders and stuff, records and commercial, has been really strong for us. I have heard in the marketplace and clearly among agents, I've heard of a slower than a small commercial market. We have not seen it in our numbers yet, but there is talk that between the small and more debt-oriented, there is some slowing. On the data center thing, we have not seen any slowdown at all. And so, again, it's hard to know what could have been, I guess, because of all the noise you see in the marketplace. But it's a pretty robust portfolio. we owe um that we see and uh it's again it's it's we haven't seen any flow for us it's odd about us as you know we the last two years we've doubled commercials so we have a lot of quarters last year we grew over 50 you know 40 50 percent so some of our comparisons are a little odd for growth but i really like the flow we're seeing um we we have the best team we've ever had a big been able to make some investments for the last year here. So I continue to see growth opportunity there for the company in the next couple of years.

Okay, great. Actually, I might have missed the first part, but just on the amount that got pushed, did you give a dollar amount?

I didn't give a specific, but it's a handful of millions. So it's not a small amount, and it's a handful of transactions.

Okay, great. and then actually just switching over to the uh services segment can you just help us think about the drivers of the you know the increase in expense relative to the revenues uh can you remind us how much of this segment is impacted by by rates and then um you you mentioned for just the the margin outlook for that segment um and does how much of that like to the extent we have say you know the market remains at this level into next year um you know does that change that David, can you just remind us what you said for margins for next year?

So what I've been saying is the portfolio we have, as you know, that portfolio is really made up of three pieces. It's made up of the appraisal business, the credit data, and then the default business. In all three of those now, we're the top three, four players. So we have critical mass, and, again, there's some things happening in all those spaces around the importance of technology, and I feel good that we're going to continue to see consolidation and share growth there. The two that are most, that are very sensitive to kind of the residential rate environment are appraisal and the data. And the complicating factor, by the way, is that it's worse than just closes. So we've had historical cancellations this quarter, probably 15% of the transactions, and we've had a big decrease in kind of mortgage applications. So the way in data, for example, in credit data, we get paid both when the mortgage application gets opened, right, because some of our work is done in verification of kind of the quality of the credit, et cetera. And then we get paid again at the close, right? So that, as the market goes down, you obviously have less revenue. So our same, what I call same-store growth, so we've had some new accounts, so we've still continued to grow a little bit, but we've seen, you know, about 6%, 7% reduction in same store volume, which is the combination of the, you know, month closed files, as you can mention, but also more cancellations. And so, you've seen a decrease in the app, just the opening of mortgage apps. So, that's where your margin goes, because if you lose, you know, two-thirds of your revenue, which is kind of how to think about it, between the opening of the application And then the closing, as those things cancel, you can see that, you know, revenue is going to go down. An appraisal, same thing. Although we don't do a lot of pre-work in appraisal, most of that work is done afterwards. We don't have a lot of wasted costs. But we've seen in those two businesses, you know, 4% or 5% of the appraisal part, reduction of volume with our current customers. So that's why the volume, so the margin, so the margin is in that, you know, that 10, 10 and a half, right? But all I need is a normalized market. I don't need it to go all the way back. I just need it to stabilize so you don't have these deltas and changes because the changes are what cost you. Kind of because you're carrying the expenses because you're doing some of the work and then it goes away. So, again, what I've said is that business, even at a 4-1, 4-2 kind of existing home sales, that's going to be about a 13%, you know, 14% margin business. We built it to scale. We got the nice mix between the three businesses. And so this deck is going to, you know, for the next couple of quarters, we're going to see this kind of, in my view, kind of at this level of margin in that business. But I like the long-term. It's a more stable part of our portfolio because of the mix we have now. So, again, that's why I say it'll go migrate back up.

That's helpful. Sorry, go ahead. You put out that information on FHA delinquencies in some of your reports that are over, like, 11%, although they've been stabilizing.

But the roles to foreclosure are just sort of getting started, and that's where the property preservation does myself so it's a bit of an offset to what fred was talking about okay okay great but even in a flattish market next year the the margins go back up a few points as this lag kind of goes away i believe so and again there's a bunch of interesting changes with vantage scores which we could get in at some point um that is going to position us really well to consolidate and grow, share that market because we have a very unique product and solution for those that transition to them. So I feel very good about kind of the data, credit data business over the long haul.

Okay, great. Thanks a lot.

Thank you. And once again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star and one on your keypad now. We'll go next to Oscar Nevis with Stevens, Inc. Your line is now open.

My first one is on the recent acquisitions that you announced, the one at the end of 2Q, or at the beginning of 3Q, and the ones at the beginning of September. Just wondering if you could walk us through those acquisitions and what we should expect them to add to revenue and earnings, and how big those deals were, and when they close, or if they close already.

Go ahead, Mitch. Yeah, hey, Oscar. So we did three so far of size this year. We did the appraisal one back in, I think it was April, Nationwide Appraisal, NAND. That just rolls into our steward valuation intelligence business, so the appraisal business that Fred talked about, and it just gives a scale. That's one of the things that got us up to now being like a top three player there. The other two are in title, so pro-title goes into the CTS segment that Fred talked about. Those both closed on 9-1, and then Tower title that he also talked about, they just basically go into their respective businesses, right? So CTS will get pro-title, Tower will get, you know, Commercial will get Tower, and, you know, they just add to those businesses. But, you know, we said that we typically buy those kind of businesses that these are title businesses, so 4 to 6E, but these are higher margin. So, you know, I think you're maybe on the higher end. So if you just think about all the money we had to deploy at year end between NAN and these other two, we basically deployed $150 million. And so you can sort of back in to what economics you might be able to get out of that. And, you know, you'll see the acquisitions number in our 10Q, so it'll all be public.

And I would say to you, the last two were kind of late in this quarter. They were not at one. So it was marginal impact at all. on the quarter. But in both cases, again, to me, they're really important because Tower gives us this additional capability infrastructure where I think we're going to have sustained growth in the business and it covers an area that we are like. And on the pro title, because the whole institutional business, one of the things I'm doing in the centralized title business is to create a left volatile. I'm not a big refi guy, but our centralized title as really specialty a portfolio of specialty centralized title uh and these bring the institutional or the institutional business uh to us and uh i feel good about super helpful uh

my next one is there is you know bill pulpy has made uh some tweets recently that have impacted title stocks there's a lot of uh nervousness around uh potential expansion to the title waivers.

Any, you know, incremental commentary on that point?

Yeah, again, I think what's been said, particularly about the pilot, is kind of old news. And essentially what they did is they expanded the number of lenders that are in it. The coverage is roughly the same. It's a very small subset of refi that is included in the title space. And again, we'll see how it plays out. I keep saying if it tests out, the whole thing is going to be pricing. And because, you know, if that makes sense, we are not really big in the refi market. And I don't think there's many scenarios that want to be big in the refi market, given the volatility of that business and the low margins that are in it. but again I don't see it there's no big expansion from where we are but the number of again lenders that are participating is a little bit bigger so again it doesn't have much impact another thing to keep in mind is if you look at our refi orders like Fred said we don't really have much in that centralized lender so most of our refi orders came from customers that is that reissued a prior steward policy on and they're out in our field operations.

So stuff like this doesn't really impact them that much.

I guess my last one, are you seeing any AI and automation show up in margins yet, especially as you mentioned earlier that you expect a challenge market over the next few quarters?

Yeah, it's interesting. It's a great question because i'm feeling pretty bullish on our ai initiatives i think the financial impact is going to take 18 months to kind of see kind of the robust uh financial impact although we are seeing it today particularly in the search area uh and then and again we've got some really interesting things that we're doing there and i think you know i think the search area is the place where there's the greatest opportunity for efficiency and accuracy and what I consider better turnaround time, for instance, for our agents, which I think matters to the combined economics. So yeah, the other thing, obviously, we give the virtual underwriter, and it's given to our agents, which actually helps their efficiency in the work where they do the clearing of title and the underwriting of Egypt. But again, it's probably, I think I mentioned to you, we have over 100 initiatives, and frankly about, there's like 50 that are penciling already operationally that we track returns on. And it's early days, but, you know, it is, in my view, going to be helpful, particularly if you see the residential market sit at 4-1 longer, which I think people are talking about, I think over the next, you know, four or six quarters, it's going to be very helpful to us to manage expenses. But again, I think it also is really good about quality, some of the quality of delivery and some of the consistency of turnaround, which is really what, you know, particularly the agency channel, they really...

Thank you. And once more, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one on your keypad now. At this time, there are no additional questions in queue. I will now turn the meeting back to Fred for any additional or closing remarks.

I want to thank everybody for their interest in Stuart and appreciate you joining us on the call.

Thank you. That brings us to the end of today's meeting. We appreciate your time and participation. You may now-