Stewart Information Services Q2 2025 Earnings Report

Stewart Information Services EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $1.34
• Consensus EPS: $1.30
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.04
• One Year Ago EPS: $0.91

Stewart Information Services Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $721.50 million
• Expected Revenue: $671.90 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$49.60 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +19.90%

Stewart Information Services Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q2 2025
• Date: 7/23/2025
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, July 24, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 8:30AM ET

Stewart Information Services (NYSE:STC), through its subsidiaries, provides title insurance and real estate transaction related services in the United States and internationally. The company involves in searching, examining, closing, and insuring the condition of the title to real property. It also offers home and personal insurance services; services for tax-deferred exchanges; and digital customer engagement platform services. It also provides appraisal management, online notarization and closing, credit and real estate information, and search and valuation services. The company serves homebuyers and sellers, residential and commercial real estate professionals, mortgage lenders and servicers, title agencies and real estate attorneys, and home builders through direct operations, network of independent agencies, and other businesses. The company was founded in 1893 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.

Stewart Information Services Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Stewart reported Q2 revenue of $722 million, up 20% year-over-year, and adjusted EPS of $1.34, a 48% increase despite a flat housing market.
• Positive Sentiment: Domestic commercial operations grew 46% and small commercial surged 36%, with management citing a robust pipeline and strategic talent investments for continued momentum.
• Positive Sentiment: Agency services delivered 25% growth driven by share gains in key markets, expanded agent support and enhanced commercial capabilities across 15 focus states.
• Positive Sentiment: Real Estate Solutions revenue rose 22% on stronger Credit Information and Valuation Services, and the PropStream acquisition of Batch Leads and Batch Dialer will integrate AI-driven data and marketing tools.
• Negative Sentiment: Market headwinds persist with existing home sales near 15-year lows, slowed price appreciation to 1.5% and ongoing uncertainty around the timing and magnitude of any housing recovery.

Presentation

[Operator]

and thank you for joining the Stewart Information Services Second Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Call.

[Operator]

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. It is now my pleasure to turn today's conference over to Kat Bass, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

[Kathryn Bass, Director - IR at Stewart Information Services]

Thank you for joining us today for Steward's second quarter twenty twenty five 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 Heisey. To listen online, please go to the stewart.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.

[Kathryn Bass, Director - IR at Stewart Information Services]

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 stewart.com. Let me now turn the call over to Fred.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

Thank you. Thank you for joining us today for Stewart's second quarter twenty twenty five earnings conference call. Yesterday, we released the financial results for the quarter, which David will review with you shortly. I will open the call with some thoughts on current housing market conditions, followed by a dive into our second quarter results and some insight into the progress we are making on our strategic growth initiatives. Before discussing these initiatives, I want to express my our sympathies to those affected by the recent weather events across the country.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

Our hearts go out to those affected by the July 4 flooding in Texas, our home state. While our employees were not directly impacted by this monumental flood, we know that countless families were. We have and will continue to find ways to support rebuilding efforts in Central Texas. We are very pleased with our second quarter results as they demonstrate our ability to significantly grow both revenue and earnings in a stubbornly challenged housing market. Market uncertainty and affordability challenges have kept buyers at bay as they wait further clarity on near term economics.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

The spring selling season has fallen flat with existing home sales down roughly one percent compared to the second quarter of twenty twenty four. Inventories have improved in volume and quality over the past several months, which could be a precursor market. The improved inventory is allowing buyers to be more selective, and we are seeing that homes are sitting on the market longer and more homes are trading below listing price. All of these levers are helping cool price appreciation, which was around 1.5% for the quarter as compared to about 3% for the first quarter and over 4.5% for the fourth quarter in 2024. While the current market outlook is difficult to predict, given the current market activity, we expect to see some improvement in the second half of the year relative to 2024.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

However, the magnitude and timing of this improvement remains unclear. In a largely flat housing market, I am very pleased results for the second quarter and our continued momentum across largely all of our businesses. We grew revenues by 20% and adjusted EPS by 48% compared to the second quarter of twenty twenty four. In the direct operations, a business which most immediately feels the effects of a challenged residential housing market, we grew 6% overall and we remain focused on growing share in target MSAs and micro markets both organically and inorganically. We expect acquisitions will be a big driver of our growth plans for this business going forward and maintain a warm pipeline of targets.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

In addition, we are focused on expanding small commercial operations and our investments are having significant impact as we delivered 36% growth rate in this quarter over last year in small commercial and direct operations. Growth in our national commercial service business continued to be strong, driven by increasing penetration in a number of geographic markets and asset classes. Our continued growth will be driven by targeted investments in talent. Thoughtful investments in our talent will allow us to expand our network and deepen our capabilities in more geographies asset classes in order to leverage our distinctive underwriting capability. We have made great progress in expanding our commercial teams with industry leading talent and will continue to strategically do so into the foreseeable future.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

In the second quarter, we grew our domestic commercial business by 46% relative to the second quarter of last year. Year to date domestic revenue has grown 43% when compared to the first half of twenty twenty four. While energy continues to be a strong asset class for us, we have also experienced solid growth across most of our asset classes and we are steadfast in our pursuit of growth across all commercial asset classes. Our agency service business also delivered very strong results. Our team remains focused on expansion through share gains in attractive markets through additional new agents and expanded share with existing agents.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

We pursue growth across all states, but we are laser focused on 15 states that would allow us to capture significant scale and growth. We have also enhanced our agency commercial capabilities and are seeing strong traction in supporting our agents in their commercial work. Our agent servicing team delivered strong second quarter results growing 25% when compared to the second quarter of twenty twenty four. Again, that's in a relatively flat residential market, which likely demonstrates continued share gains in agency residential and commercial. We will continue to build the momentum we have made in the recent years for our agents in order to differentiate our services and better our offerings for our agent partners.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

Our Real Estate Solutions business continues to gain traction growing revenue 22% when compared to the second quarter of last year, primarily due to higher revenues from our Credit Information and Evaluation Services business. Our margins improved sequentially and were slightly down relative to the second quarter of twenty twenty four. We expect margins in our lender services to normalize in the low teens range for the remainder of the year. We expect to grow the Real Estate Solutions business line by gaining share with top lenders and cross selling our products as we leverage our improved portfolio of services. Cross selling in this kind of current market conditions poses some challenges.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

However, we are pleased to see share gains with both existing clients and new client introductions. And we expect continued momentum in this space as the market improves. We are also proud to announce that PropStream, a real estate data and analytics platform in our Real Estate Solutions segment acquired Batch Leads and Batch Dialer in early July. This acquisition allows us to combine ProstGene's property data engine and marketing tools with Batch Leads' advanced AI driven tools and contact dialer. This combination will offer customers best in class nationwide real estate data intelligence, an enhanced lead targeting and unified outreach platform all in one place.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

Moving to our international business. We are focused on broadening our geographic presence in Canada and increasing our commercial penetration. In the second quarter of twenty twenty five, we grew both non commercial direct and commercial direct revenue by 6% compared to the prior year. We believe we can continue to build our strong position in these markets and continue to grow share. Overall, we remain dedicated to strengthening our businesses by improving our scale and improving our competitive position in each business.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

We remain focused on growth even in the challenged market, and we feel poised to capitalize on improvements when the market returns to normal levels. We continue to be thoughtful about our investments in ourselves and in pursuit of smart growth for each of our business lines. I want to close by thanking our employees for their dedication and focus. It's interesting that over the last few weeks, I've been able to visit a large number of offices and met with over 1,000 of our colleagues in person. And I was struck by positivity and energy everywhere I visit, especially given the difficult market conditions we all compete in.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

And I want to thank them for driving our journey to be the premier title service provider. And finally, to our many new and long term customers, I want to thank you for trusting us to deliver with consistency and excellence. So with that, David, I'll turn it over to you to provide the update on this.

[David Hisey, CFO, Secretary & Treasurer at Stewart Information Services]

Good morning, everyone, and thank you, Fred. I appreciate our employees and I'm thankful for our customers. I share Fred's sympathies for those affected by recent weather events. The real estate market remains challenged with mortgage rates in the high 6s and existing single family home sales around fifteen year lows. Yesterday, Stewart reported second quarter net income of $32,000,000 or $1.13 per diluted share based on revenues of $722,000,000 Appendix A of our press release shows adjustments primarily related to net realized and unrealized gains and losses and acquired intangible asset amortization that we use to measure operating performance.

[David Hisey, CFO, Secretary & Treasurer at Stewart Information Services]

On an adjusted basis, second quarter net income was 38,000,000 or $1.34 per diluted share compared to $25,000,000 or $0.91 per diluted share last year. In the title segment, operating revenues in the second quarter improved $96,000,000 or 19% driven by both our direct and agency title operations. This resulted in a title pretax income improvement of $16,000,000 or 48%. After adjustments for purchase intangible amortization and other expenses, the Title segment's adjusted pretax income was $52,000,000 which was $14,000,000 or 35% better than last year, while adjusted pretax margin improved 1% to 8.5 On our Direct Title business, second quarter total open and closed orders improved due to higher commercial refinancing and real estate investor activity. Domestic commercial revenues increased $24,000,000 or 46% due to strength and breadth in the energy, data center, hospitality, industrial, land development and multifamily asset classes.

[David Hisey, CFO, Secretary & Treasurer at Stewart Information Services]

Domestic commercial average fee per file increased 25% to $16,900 compared to $13,500 last year. Domestic residential fee per file slightly declined to $2,900 compared to $3,000 last year, primarily due to a higher mix of refinancing and real estate investor orders. International results improved modestly. While our agency with our agency operations, gross agency revenues increased $61,000,000 or 25% on improved volumes at our key agency states, while net agency revenues improved $9,000,000 or 21%. On title losses, our total title loss expense in the second quarter increased slightly to $22,000,000 due to increased title revenues, partially offset by our overall favorable claims experience.

[David Hisey, CFO, Secretary & Treasurer at Stewart Information Services]

The title loss ratio for the second quarter improved to 3.6% compared to 4.2% last year. We expect our title losses to average around 4% for the full year 2025. Regarding Solutions segment, operating revenues improved $20,000,000 or 22 percent driven by increased revenue from our Credit Information and Valuation Services operations. Excluding acquisition and tangible amortization, adjusted pretax income was $2,000,000 or 15% higher. We continue to manage the higher credit information cost of service and are focused on deepening and expanding customer relationships.

[David Hisey, CFO, Secretary & Treasurer at Stewart Information Services]

Adjusted pre tax margin for the second quarter was 10.9%, which has improved sequentially and from Q4's low point. We expect our margins to be in the low relationships mature. On our consolidated operating expenses, our employee cost ratio improved to 30% versus 31% last year, while our other operating expense ratio improved to 25% from 26%, primarily due to higher operating revenues. On other matters, our financial position remains solid to support our customers, employees and the real estate market during this challenging environment. Our total cash and investments were approximately $390,000,000 in excess of our statutory premium reserve requirements, while we also have a fully available $200,000,000 line of credit.

[David Hisey, CFO, Secretary & Treasurer at Stewart Information Services]

Total Steward stockholders' equity at June 30 was approximately $1,400,000,000 with a book value of $51 a share. Net cash provided by operations improved by $32,000,000 in the second quarter compared to last year. Again, you to our customers and employees, and we remain confident in our service to the real estate markets. I'll now turn the call over to the operator for questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. We will take our first question from Bose George with KBW. Please go ahead.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

Good morning.

[Bose George, Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)]

Yes, good morning. So first just on commercial, you obviously had another very good commercial quarter. Can you discuss what you're seeing in terms of the commercial pipeline in July? And also last year in the second second half of the year, obviously commercial ramped quite a bit. Just given that the year over year comps obviously get a little bit harder, just curious how we should think about your expectations for the back half of this year and commercial revenues year over year?

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

Yes. Thanks. So I feel good about the pipeline. There's a lot of activity. And so again, do I think we're going to sustain 45% growth?

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

No. But do I think we can grow and grow up more than the market? Yes. And we have good visibility to pipeline and the breadth of the pipeline is good too. So I feel pretty good about it.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

The other thing bodes about us for commercial. We're also very focused on it, what I call main street commercial, small commercial within the direct operation. And we've seen nice growth there too, which is a segment that we kind of gave up on almost during some of the troubled times of the company. And so that's coming back nicely. So I'm pretty comfortable that we will continue to see growth in commercial, but you're absolutely right to see to talk about the comparisons from last year.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

And we're at a very hefty number, which will probably come in a little bit. But I feel confident that the momentum will continue.

[Bose George, Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)]

Okay. Great. And then actually switching over to the residential. On the agent premiums, they were up 25 versus the direct up 14%. Can you remind us, is there any timing issue there, agent versus direct? Is it just No.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

No. Due to the agency again, I think what's happened on agency is twofold. One is we've been able we've been resourcing up a little bit now that our value proposition has been good, both our servicing and some of these capabilities on commercial, we've added staff in some of these targeted states, which is starting to get some traction. And also, if you remember, we weren't very good at delivering commercial to the agents outside of New York, really. And so we created both an ability to do what we call kind of a concierge service for agents to really help them, particularly on things that might be multistate and some direct issue capability for them on places they don't have licenses, and that's taken off.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

So we have both nice geographic growth because of resource and we have the commercial penetration that's increased. So I like the momentum there. We had, I think, net growth of 14% last quarter, announced 21%. So again, are we going to be at that 25 level? It could bounce around.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

It could be a little bit less than that. But I like our momentum because of the initiatives we're taking to grow our position.

[Bose George, Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)]

Okay, great. That's helpful. Thanks. And actually just one more on the agent. The agent retention rate, it looks like that, I guess, declined about a point.

[Bose George, Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)]

Is that like is that just geography that's driving that?

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

Yes. It's 100% geography. And if you look at us versus everybody else, it is really driven by Florida. And that is we've made some progress, but we're still in the 5%, 6% share range where our competitors are the 20 plus. All of the three, the big three are all 20 plus share, and that drives that retention.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

There's a couple of other states that are more. But the profitability of every state is good. So I don't worry about it. It's just the splits kind of drive that. In Texas, for instance, we've had nice growth in Texas, which is good, attractive, but that's a much lower split.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

It's like a 15%. So again, it's just the geographic mix. Same with Ohio, we've had really good growth. So I'm comfortable with that is because we've had increase the margin has gotten better as we've grown because remember that's also a business where there's more fixed costs. So growth is very helpful to your margin because so much of the work is barred by the agent.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

And so really good continued margin profile as we grow. So I'm good with the mix, but I'd like to see more Florida in the mix too.

[Bose George, Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)]

Okay. Great. Thanks a lot.

[Operator]

Thank you. And your next question comes from Jeffrey Dunn with Dowling and Partners. Please go ahead.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

Hey, good morning, Jeff.

[Geoffrey Dunn, Partner at Dowling & Partners]

Good morning. I've got a couple of questions for you. I guess first, what is the rough breakdown of your domestic commercial business between what you're labeling small versus national commercial?

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

Yes. About $19,000,000 in this quarter, about 19,000,000 of the total would be what I call small, right? So of the 74,000,000 domestic, about 19,000,000 And what I'm excited about that is that we had basically when our capital was short, when the company was troubled, we basically centralized what the commercial we did and we did very little in the offices. So we were advocating kind of the we were giving to the big guys all the but I would say $20,000,000 and down kind of business that you have in the single state, mixed use projects in some of these places, and particularly in offices outside the big cities, right? The Austins of the world or the Columbuses of the world or the so what's happened now is we've done a really nice job investing and setting and providing skills.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

Now what's interesting is we had some of the skills present in the offices, but we haven't really kind of focused on it. And so that's really starting to get some nice traction for us. And I really think that's an important part of our go forward plan because it helps dramatically kind of our margin profile in the direct operations as well, right? So it because you're using your excess capacity more effectively and it gives you some higher margin business.

[Geoffrey Dunn, Partner at Dowling & Partners]

Got you.

[Geoffrey Dunn, Partner at Dowling & Partners]

And then on the residential business, can you remind us the premium relationship between a purchase deal and a refi deal as well as the margins that typically go with those?

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

Sure. So a retail deal is kind of somewhere about $3,000 Refi is somewhere between $1,000 and $1,400 It differs whether it's centralized or distributed or whatever, in which state it's in. And the margin on residential is pretty consistent, whereas refi bounces all over the place because it depends on your capacity in the office, right? You're doing it with excess capacity because the margin is going to be lower if you have excess capacity for refi. So again, and think about refi for us.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

So refi is just upside for us. Unlike everybody else in the industry, we only have 3% of our revenue in refi and less in earnings. It's all upside. And so we've grown a little bit in centralized as the lender business has grown, but I haven't really focused on it because it's a little bit more cyclical than our other businesses. And so we've really primarily invested in things like commercial and purchase.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

And frankly, even centralized, we've gone out to niche like reverse as investor. I felt that those were the priorities for us to get our margins up, our consistency of earnings up and our growth up. So I look at refi as just future upside. And by the way, don't need it to get to 15% share that I talked about. I don't need it to get 12% returns.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

So as other people kind of think about it's coming and going, it doesn't I think for me, doesn't really affect our profile. Now this quarter is a great example where some of our big competitors are going to get a little bit boost more boost from refi. You can see it in the numbers where we're not going to get that because we don't there's a whole segment of some of the big players that we're not present in and I haven't really focused on it. But again, over time, we'll get more of this, but it'll be from a position of a more stable company with higher margins and I'll be happy to do it. That's kind of where we are with refi, which is why, by the way, when people talk about the pilots, the impact on us is kind of nothing.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

And by the way, the pilot the latest announcements are actually very positive to me because what it looks like is they were finding there's an option in the model that includes the title policy, maybe cheaper, maybe with different coverages, with curative, which is what we recommended at the beginning, which they went to a more tech only. And if that pilot works and there's margins in it with that approach, we could do that because we have the same technology, the same workflows, and we could triage that stuff like that, too. So for me, refi is just a potential additional positive thing for us in the future if we want to pursue it more aggressively. So I'm feeling good about what we have, but I'm fine that it's a small percentage of our business too.

[Geoffrey Dunn, Partner at Dowling & Partners]

Given the pilot comments you just made, I know it's been bumping around a little bit, not a lot of traction at this point, but do you have any sense as to how the pilot is pricing loans that go through without a with waived title insurance versus your authorized I don't.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

We're not that close. And obviously the waived, in my view, is not the best solution for the lenders, right, because it kicks a lot of issues around. If you're not going to do any curative, there's going to be some real issues at transactions, later transactions. And so again, I don't I know what the tech pricing is, and I don't frankly don't even know on this new model what the whole pricing is, which is something that we'd have to come out of it and they'd have to prove that they could actually do that successfully. But I do like to me, anything that retains the policy and retains curative, that's probably be highly automated, right?

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

And because it's a segment of the policies that is less risky, if you will, or corporate. But again, that's a much better solution for lenders in my view. And probably gets to the same, you can get a little bit of a lower price, right, to that. So but I don't we don't we're not participating in it. We just know about it and we've been watching it closely and trying to pay attention to it to make sure if we want to participate later, if it gets through to know if we would do it.

[Geoffrey Dunn, Partner at Dowling & Partners]

Got you. And then last question is another mix question. Can you update us on the mix of the primary segments within RES being PropStream, InfoResearch and the core offerings and the margins that go with those three buckets?

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

Yes. So in that business, you have the data kind of business, what we call IR, a data business and that's got the verification waterfall and all the TriMerge credit stuff in it. We have appraisal, which is a big piece of the business.

[David Hisey, CFO, Secretary & Treasurer at Stewart Information Services]

Those are the two biggest revenue Right.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

Those are really the two big ones. And PropStream is much smaller, but it's a nice value added product. But those all, we believe, can get to that 12% consistent in a down market that can get to that 12% kind of cash margin. And in a good market, that should get more closer to 14%, 15 if we had a little bit more volume because they also have some fixed cost coverage issues when you're at this low volume. Again, the whole business, in my view, can carry that.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

We had a little bit of bumpiness with the data costs and how we priced some of this in a bundled fashion to capture some value. And what's going to end up happening, we'll end up this year right around where we ended up last year between 'eleven and 'twelve, I guess, when it's all said for the year. So I like the businesses. They generate a nice profile. They are cyclical.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

They all are affected by the cycle. It's just that we've been able to have enough margin on a cash basis to sustain a little bit higher margin in those businesses.

[Operator]

And we will take the next question from Bose George with KBW.

[Bose George, Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)]

Thanks. Hey, Hey, just a quick follow-up. The investment income line was up a decent amount. Was there anything unusual there?

[David Hisey, CFO, Secretary & Treasurer at Stewart Information Services]

Yes, Bose. I mean, we're still running about six of that a quarter as the escrow earnings and then the rest and you see this in other places too, right? As you're rolling investments into the higher yield environment, you get a little bit more on that. So that's mainly the reason it's going up as well as we had a little bit of increase in balances.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

And Bose, over time, again, we're not seeing the impact yet. But this commercial as a percentage of our business, if that gets bigger, that's helpful, right, because of the flow that comes with that, right? And we have to capture it. But we've gone from about 10% of our business in title being commercial to 13 which is helpful. And I would tell you the other place we need to push on is with that should be able to grow our ten thirty one business, which we haven't recognized that yet.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

But we to get after that and grow that business because that should be connected to this growth in commercial as a part of our business. So as David said, mostly what we had to do is we had to recapture escrow with these partnerships with banks that they value the deposits. And we got to keep doing that. And as we grow, obviously, those balances grow and so there's a little bit. But the other piece here is making sure we capture because the additional kind of it's a little bit disproportionate on commercial.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

So we should if we can do a good job there, we should over time see a little bit of growth there too, which hasn't materialized yet, but could.

[Bose George, Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)]

Okay. And but that number, I mean, we should think of that number as kind of base case and kind grow from there when we think it's Obviously,

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

if yields it's very yield driven, right?

[Bose George, Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)]

Yes.

[David Hisey, CFO, Secretary & Treasurer at Stewart Information Services]

Right. I mean, if you have two rate cuts, let's just say, for the rest of the year, you're going to feel that a little bit in the escrows. But ours aren't hair trigger because they're more negotiated, but you're definitely going to have some downward pressure. But then as roll your investment portfolio, that's going into things that are a lot better than during COVID years.

[Bose George, Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)]

Yes. Okay. Great. Thanks for the color.

[Operator]

Thank you. And it appears that we have no further questions at this time. I will now turn the meeting back to Fred Eppinger.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

Yes. Thank you for the call. One of the things that I would close by saying is there was a great question two quarters ago by of the analysts that said, if the market doesn't grow at all, like what can the company do? And I think the way I answer is I said, I think because of our momentum, we could grow 10% top line and 20% bottom line in that kind of environment. If you look at the six months so far, we're up about 16% and about 49% in earnings.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

I don't know if we can sustain something like that, but what I know is that our businesses have some nice momentum right now. And if we stay focused on what we're trying to accomplish, we should be able to grow a little bit more than the market and continue to leverage our earnings. And I'm really proud of what this quarter was, not because of this quarter, but because of the work that our folks did to build our capabilities over the last couple of years to get to this point where I think we can sustain a little bit more than the market. Not probably what this quarter was, but sustain a little bit better than the market. So I'm very pleased with where we are positioned as a company.

[Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director at Stewart Information Services]

So thank you so much for your attention today, and thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. This does conclude today's presentation. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at any time.

Participants

Executives

• Kathryn Bass, Director - IR
• Frederick Eppinger, CEO & Director
• David Hisey, CFO, Secretary & Treasurer

Analysts

• Bose George, Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)
• Geoffrey Dunn, Partner at Dowling & Partners