First American profit falls 65 percent as mortgages sag

SANTA ANA, Calif.—First American Corp., a business information and analytics provider, said Thursday its first-quarter earnings fell 65 percent, due to declines in the mortgage and real estate markets.

Net income for the quarter ended March 31 fell to $29.3 million, or 32 cents per share, from $83.8 million or 84 cents per share, during the same period a year ago.

Analysts polled by Thomson Financial, on average, forecast earnings of 14 cents per share for the quarter on revenue of $1.84 billion.

First American's revenue fell to $1.66 billion during the first quarter from $2.12 billion during the first quarter of 2007.

During the quarter, the company reorganized its operations into two business groups: financial services and information solutions.

The financial services group includes title insurance and related services as well as specialty insurance. Title insurance business revenue fell 26 percent to $1 billion as the number of homes sold continued to decline. Specialty insurance revenue fell 6 percent to $76.1 million, mostly due to a decrease in property and casualty insurance revenue.

Among its information solutions group, information and outsourcing solutions revenue fell 5 percent from the year-ago period to $196.2 million. Data and analytic solutions revenue fell 35 percent to $146.9 million because of a special gain recorded during the year-ago period.