FNF - NYSE
Fidelity National Financial, Inc.
FNF·NYSE
$45.42
-2.2%Financial ServicesInsurance - Specialty
Fidelity National Financial, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides various insurance products in the United States. The company operates through Title, F&G, and Corporate and Other segments. It offers title insurance, escrow, and other title related services, including trust activities, trustee sales guarantees, recordings and reconveyances, and home warranty insurance. The company also provides technology and transaction services to the real estate and mortgage industries; and mortgage transaction services, including title-related services and facilitation of production and management of mortgage loans. In addition, it offers annuity and life insurance products, such as deferred annuities that include fixed indexed, fixed rate, and immediate annuities, as well as indexed universal life insurance products. Further, the company engages in the real estate brokerage business. Fidelity National Financial, Inc. was founded in 1847 and is headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida.
At a Glance
Live SnapshotMarket Cap$12.23B
EPS2.2200
P/E Ratio20.46
Earnings Date08/05/2026
Earnings Call Transcript
FNF • 2026 • Q1
Operator
Good morning, and welcome to FNF's first quarter 2026 earnings call. During today's presentation, all callers will be placed in listen-only mode. Following management's prepared remarks, the conference will be opened for questions with instructions to follow at that time. I would now like to turn the call over to Lisa Foxworthy-Parker, SVP, Investor and External Relations. Please go ahead.
Lisa Foxworthy-Parker
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 Conor 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 of 1995, which do not guarantee future events or performance.
Lisa Foxworthy-Parker
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.
Lisa Foxworthy-Parker
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 webcast replay. With that, I'll hand the call over to Mike Nolan.
Mike Nolan
Thank you, Lisa, and good morning. Our combined business continued to deliver outstanding financial results through the first quarter. Starting with title, we delivered adjusted pre-tax title earnings of $268 million, up 27% over the first quarter of 2025. This generated an industry-leading adjusted pre-tax title margin of 13.1% for the first quarter, an increase of 140 basis points over 11.7% in the first quarter of 2025.
Mike Nolan
Our first quarter results reflect continued strong performance across the business, highlighted by strength in our direct commercial, refinance, and agency businesses. Additionally, our disciplined expense management drove strong incremental margins. Looking at our title results more closely, on the purchase front, we saw typical first quarter seasonality with sequential improvement coming off the fourth quarter, while existing home sales remained well below the historical average.
Mike Nolan
Our daily purchase orders opened were up 2% over the first quarter of 2025, up 25% over the fourth quarter of 2025, and up 4% for the month of April versus the prior year. Our refinance volumes continue to be responsive to 30-year mortgage rates. This boosted refinance orders open to 2,000 per day in the first quarter as mortgage rates moved into the low 6% level.
Mike Nolan
Volumes subsequently moderated to 1,600 per day in the month of April as mortgage rates moved higher. Our refinance orders open per day were up 52% over the first quarter of 2025, up 16% over the fourth quarter of 2025, and up 13% for the month of April versus the prior year.
Mike Nolan
For commercial, volumes continued to be strong with direct commercial revenue of $338 million in the first quarter, up 15% over $293 million in the first quarter of 2025. This was driven by a 22% increase in national revenues and an 8% increase in local revenues. We continue to see growth in both national and local market daily orders opened, with each up 5% over the first quarter of 2025. Total commercial orders opened were 906 per day, up 5% over the first quarter of 2025, up 11% over the fourth quarter of 2025, and up 9% for the month of April versus the prior year.
Mike Nolan
We also have a strong inventory of commercial deals slated to close, diversified across a broad set of asset classes, including industrial, data centers, multifamily, affordable housing, retail, and energy. To bring it all together, total orders opened averaged 6,400 per day in the first quarter, with January at 5,900, February at 6,500, and March at 6,600.
Mike Nolan
For the month of April, total orders opened were 6,200 per day, which was up 7% over the prior year. As we enter the second quarter, I want to address a question we hear frequently: How do we think about our 15%-20% targeted annual range for adjusted pre-tax title margin? Let me start with what we've already demonstrated.
Mike Nolan
Existing home sales have been near 4 million units for more than 3 consecutive years, among the lowest levels in 3 decades, while mortgage rates have remained elevated. Yet, we've delivered an industry-leading full year 2025 adjusted pre-tax title margin of 15.9%. That is the direct result of our scale, decades of investment in technology and automation, and our disciplined operating model that have continued to strengthen the earnings power of this business.
Mike Nolan
We are confident that we can continue to deliver within our 15%-20% annual range, even if total residential volumes remain at current levels over the near term. Once mortgage rates improve, we believe residential purchase and refinance activity will accelerate and trend toward historical levels. This recovery represents additional earnings power given the operational leverage that we have built into our model.
Mike Nolan
Beyond a residential volume recovery, the benefits of our continuous investments in technology and AI have the potential to further enhance our business. I want to spend a few minutes on AI, what we are doing and what it means for our business. FNF in the title industry hold a unique position in real estate transactions. We do not sit next to the real estate transaction.
Mike Nolan
We sit inside the transactions, orchestrating complex multi-party settlements, safeguarding the movement of funds, and mitigating fraud in every transaction. By embedding AI tools into these workflows, we can drive significant value by enhancing efficiency and our customer's experience, reducing risk, and strengthening fraud prevention across real estate transactions. These gains come from having highly curated deep sets of transactional data to augment AI. We have built our proprietary data by closing and ensuring millions of transactions.
Mike Nolan
It cannot be replicated by simply digitizing public records, regardless of how sophisticated technology becomes. As we build out our AI capabilities, we are leveraging this proprietary data alongside our deep experience and historical knowledge, and this is what sets FNF apart. Usage of AI tools by our employees is growing, with more than half of our workforce using AI tools regularly, and we are deploying customized solutions across our title and escrow operations, as well as within ServiceLink, LoanCare, our real estate technology companies, agency operations, and software development.
Mike Nolan
Importantly, we are focused on implementing AI responsibly and compliantly with appropriate governance, human oversight, and risk and regulatory controls in place. We have deliberately avoided a concentrated bet on any single model or platform. Instead, we are deploying AI directly with the data and workflows each team already owns inside or alongside the technology they already use.
Mike Nolan
While we already have a highly automated process for searching county records, we believe AI will have a meaningful benefit to other significant areas of real estate transactions as we integrate AI capabilities end-to-end throughout the entire title and settlement process. We are confident that our scale, our proprietary data, our fully deployed technology, and our financial strength will continue to position FNF as an industry leader and place us at the forefront of shaping changes in our industry in a way that continues to bring value to our customers, shareholders, and employees.
Mike Nolan
Turning now to our F&G segment. F&G's assets under management before reinsurance have grown to nearly $75 billion at March 31st, up 11% over the prior year. On a standalone basis, F&G reported GAAP equity, excluding AOCI, of $6.2 billion at quarter end, and has grown its book value per share, excluding AOCI, to $46.51, up 70% since the 2020 acquisition. F&G's diversified self-funding capital model is supported by its annual in-force capital generation and third-party capital through their reinsurance sidecar and strategic flow reinsurance partnerships.
Mike Nolan
Together, these sources of capital provide financial strength and flexibility to invest for growth and return capital to F&G shareholders through dividends and opportunistic share repurchases. We are very pleased with F&G as they continue to execute on their strategy toward a more fee-based, higher margin, and less capital-intensive business model, with a focus on growing the core business and creating long-term shareholder value. Before I turn the call over to Tony, I want to take a moment to recognize our employees.
Mike Nolan
I'd like to extend my sincere thanks for their continued dedication to our customers, their focus on execution, and their embrace of the innovation and technology that is driving this business forward. They are the foundation of everything we are building. With that, let me now turn the call over to Tony to review FNF's first quarter financial performance and provide additional insights.
Tony Park
Thank you, Mike. Starting with our consolidated results, we generated first quarter total revenue of $3.2 billion. Excluding net recognized gains and losses, our total revenue was $3.3 billion as compared with $3 billion in the first quarter of 2025. We reported first quarter net earnings of $243 million, including net recognized losses of $78 million. Compared with net earnings of $83 million, including net recognized losses of $287 million in the first quarter of 2025. Adjusted net earnings were $249 million or $0.93 per diluted share, compared with $213 million or $0.78 per share in the first quarter of 2025. The Title segment contributed $197 million.
Tony Park
The F&G segment contributed $80 million, and the Corporate segment adjusted net earnings were 0 before eliminating $28 million of dividend income from F&G in the consolidated financial statements. Turning to first quarter financial highlights specific to the Title segment.
Tony Park
Our Title segment generated $2.1 billion in total revenue in the first quarter, excluding net recognized losses of $46 million compared with $1.8 billion in the first quarter of 2025. Direct premiums increased 14% over the prior year. Agency premiums increased 16% and escrow title related and other fees increased 12%. Personnel costs increased 11% and other operating expenses increased 9%.
Tony Park
All in, the Title business generated adjusted pre-tax Title earnings of $268 million, up 27% over $211 million in the first quarter of 2025, and a 13.1% adjusted pre-tax Title margin in the quarter versus 11.7% in the prior-year quarter. Our Title and Corporate investment portfolio totaled $4.8 billion at March 31. Interest and investment income in the Title and Corporate segments was $99 million, excluding income from F&G dividends to the holding company.
Tony Park
For the remainder of 2026, we expect a range of $90 million-$95 million in interest and investment income per quarter during 2026, assuming no Fed rate cuts in the remainder of the year and stable cash balances. In addition, we expect approximately $28 million per quarter of common and preferred dividend income from F&G to the Corporate Segment. Our Title claims paid of $57 million were $5 million lower than our provision of $62 million for the first quarter.
Tony Park
The carried reserve for Title claim losses is approximately $31 million, or 2% 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 reinsurance increased to $74.5 billion at March 31, up 11% over the prior year.
Tony Park
This includes retained assets under management of $56.4 billion, up 3% over the prior year. F&G reported gross sales of $3.2 billion for the first quarter as compared with $2.9 billion in the first quarter of 2025. This reflects core sales of $2 billion for the first quarter, which includes indexed annuities, indexed life, and pension risk transfer, as well as $1.2 billion of funding agreements and multi-year guaranteed annuities.
Tony Park
Two products we view as opportunistic depending on economics and market opportunity. F&G's net sales were $2.2 billion in the first quarter. This reflects flow reinsurance in line with capital targets for multi-year guaranteed annuities and fixed indexed annuities. Adjusted net earnings for the F&G segment were $80 million for the first quarter, reflecting our approximate 70% ownership stake, compared with $80 million in the first quarter of 2025, which reflected our approximate 84% ownership stake.
Tony Park
F&G's operating performance from their underlying spread-based and fee-based businesses continues to be strong. F&G continues to provide an important complement to our Title business. The F&G segment contributed 32% of FNF's adjusted net earnings for the first quarter as compared with 38% in the first quarter of 2025. From a capital and liquidity perspective, FNF continues to maintain a strong balance sheet and balanced capital allocation strategy.
Tony Park
Our track record 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. FNF has returned approximately $222 million of capital to our shareholders in the first quarter as compared with $161 million in the first quarter of 2025. This reflects $140 million of common stock dividends and $82 million of share repurchases in the current period. We have remained active with share repurchases in the second quarter. From a capital allocation perspective, we ended 2025 with $659 million in cash and short-term liquid investments at the holding company.
Tony Park
During the first quarter, our cash position and cash generation funded $140 million of common dividends paid, $25 million of holding company interest expense, and $82 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 first quarter with $495 million in cash and short-term liquid investments at the holding company. This concludes our prepared remarks, let me now turn the call back to our operator for questions.
Tony Park
Yeah, thanks for the question. I'm probably gonna turn that over to the F&G guys because, yes, it's been a bit of a frustration that the analyst expectations seem to assume a return on alternative investments. Yet, when we report, they're maybe not picking up that piece. There seems to be a larger delta than what we see, which is actually earnings that were pretty close to in line with what we thought the consensus was. You know, maybe Chris and Conor, you can weigh in a little bit here.
Chris Blunt
Yeah, this is Chris. I'd say Tony hit it. Other than there's usually a little bit of first quarter seasonality, we were actually pleased with the results. I think they were on expectation as far as what we were expecting. I do think the disconnect is around alternatives, which have obviously underperformed industry standard is to normalize for that. I think in some cases, it's either being normalized too high or not normalized at all.
Mike Nolan
Yeah. Thank you. I can't cite a number, but we absolutely expect margin improvement in the same size environment over time with technology tooling like AI. Just like we've seen that with title automation that we've implemented over the last couple of decades. That's been a big driver behind our margin improvement and the fact that we can get the kind of margins we're getting now in low transactional environments.
Mike Nolan
I don't know that I'll get into specific tools, but maybe as I think of parts of the business. We said from the beginning kind of a four-part relative to AI. It first begins with really building out a risk and governance framework, which we've done and worked on for the past really year and a half. I think that's very important to have in place given both the opportunities for AI, but the risks that come with AI tooling.
Mike Nolan
Thanks.
Tony Park
Yeah. Thanks, Bose. This is Tony. As you know, we reported 13.1%, pretax title margin up against 11.7%. If you break that down into our various, what I'll call operations or divisions, our direct ops had roughly a 20% margin, up about 100 basis points. Agency, about a 7% margin on gross, up about 100 basis points. Our national commercial unit, so this is just, you know, the 20 or so large operations that handle exclusively commercial transactions. A 27% margin in the quarter, up against 24% in the prior year.
Tony Park
Our loan subservicing was down a little bit, but still at a 20% margin in that business. Our home warranty business had a 16% margin versus 14% in the prior year. Our ServiceLink business, which is centralized refinance and default, had a 23% margin up against 18% in the prior year quarter. Really almost to a unit, a positive improvement over the prior year quarter.
Chris Blunt
Mark, this is Chris. I think that would be a very conservative way to model it, but I don't know an appropriate way to model it. I think 80 basis points, probably a little low as a jumping-off point, but if you said that's a jumping-off point for just pure spread income at current alts levels, then you're more likely to have tailwind coming from alts as opposed to, you know, we've been normalizing.
Chris Blunt
It's been five years since we've seen meaningful realizations, and every year we come in expectant that it's gonna be the year of the IPO, and then, you know, something happens externally. I think we're still confident that we will see that when normalize. Yeah, I don't think that's an unreasonable way to think about it. It would just be a conservative way, I believe, to model it. I don't know, Conor, if you agree with that.
Mike Nolan
Yeah, Mark. It's Mike. You know, it's hard to know, but we were very pleased to see a 25% sequential improvement in the first quarter. That's above historical averages, even though we're still in an overall low environment, you know, the 4% up in April. I, you know, I don't know if it's a geographic issue or not. I do know that our recruiting has been incredibly strong, and it was very strong last year.
Chris Blunt
Thanks, Mark.
Chris Blunt
Yeah. It's a good question, Oscar. I mean, clearly the reason for the distribution back in December was to get more float out into the marketplace. We went from an 82% roughly ownership down to a 70% ownership. F&G shares were under pressure and the float wasn't really helping at least in the early phases of having those shares out there.
Mike Nolan
Yeah. I don't think they're aggressive. You know, our base case as we came into the year for residential was really upside in purchase and refi with the fact that we had lower, more stable rates to start to the year. The macro environment, as we got into March and into April, kind of upset the apple cart a little bit. That's probably when Fannie and MBA revised theirs down because, you know, their 27 forecast now, Oscar, as you pointed out, looks a lot like their 26-6 forecast that they had 60 days ago, you know?
Mike Nolan
Yeah. It's just hard to say. What we do see, though, is, I've commented on this before, just more sensitivity to lower rate movements than we probably have seen in prior vintages. I think if it really comes down to if rates, if things stabilize, the macro environment gets a little calmer and rates stabilize maybe into that lower 6 environment, we're gonna have upside in the back half of the year in residential. If they don't, you know, we'll probably continue on this current re-trajectory. I'm very pleased we had a 4% increase in purchase opens in April. We're still driving, we think, really strong margins.
Tony Park
Thanks, Oscar. I'll turn it over to Mike. My, my impression is even though we haven't made many acquisitions really over the course of the last, you know, 15 months or so, I get the sense there's more opportunity, especially on the title agent side. I just feel like we're hearing a lot more about it. We're having more discussions. I would expect that we have more activity this year and next than we've seen in the last 2 years. I don't know.
Mike Nolan
Thanks.
Operator
This will conclude our question and answer session. I will now turn the conference over to CEO, Mike Nolan, for closing remarks.
Mike Nolan
Thanks for joining our call this morning. We delivered strong first quarter results with our complimentary businesses executing well in a dynamic environment. The title segment is performing well in what remains a low transactional environment and is capitalizing on stronger commercial activity. We are delivering industry-leading margins and remain well-positioned to benefit from a recovery in residential volumes should mortgage rates move lower.
Mike Nolan
Our focus on technology and AI is contributing to our performance today, and we see potential to further enhance our business. Likewise, F&G is executing on its strategy that is focused on balancing continued growth in its spread-based business alongside the fee-based flow reinsurance, middle market life insurance, and owned distribution strategies as they focus on delivering long-term shareholder value. Thanks for your time this morning. We appreciate your interest in FNF and look forward to updating you on our second quarter earnings call.
Transcript from May 7, 2026
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