FNF Earnings Up on Increased Revenue and Margins

The title and real estate services portion of Fidelity National Financial Inc. earned $160 million in the second quarter, up from $142 million one year prior because of higher revenue and margins.

Its title group contributed $173 million while its majority equity stake in Black Knight Financial Services added another $21 million of net profits. However, the remainder of the company's activities, listed under the heading FNF Group Corporate and other, lost $34 million during the period.

The Jacksonville, Fla.-based holding company in January 2014 split out its investment portfolio of non-real-estate-related businesses into a tracking stock, Fidelity National Financial Ventures. The title business now trades under the FNF Group name.

FNF Group had total revenue of approximately $2 billion in the second quarter versus $1.7 billion in the second quarter of 2014.

"We generated a 16.2% adjusted pretax title margin this quarter in a strong commercial environment and a steadily improving residential real estate market," said Chairman William Foley in a press release.

"The performance of our title business this quarter gives us further confidence that we can continue to generate pretax title margins in the 15%-20% range as we experience further strength in the residential purchase market."

The adjusted pretax title margin was a 200-basis-point improvement over the second quarter of 2014.

Total revenue generated by the commercial real estate title business was $258 million, a 41% increase from the year prior.

FNF reported title claims paid of $70 million, a decrease of $9 million, or 11%, from the second quarter of 2014.