A year after its initial public offering, Black Knight Financial Services Inc. CEO Thomas Sanzone is quite happy with the Jacksonville-based company’s progress.
“I think the first year went as well as we could have hoped,” Sanzone said Wednesday after Black Knight’s first shareholders meeting since the IPO.
Black Knight, which provides processing services for mortgage lenders, is trading more than 40 percent higher than its May 2015 IPO price of $24.50.
“By our standards, I think that’s a pretty good return,” Sanzone said.
Black Knight, which was spun off from Fidelity National Financial Inc., is the successor to a company founded more than 50 years ago in Jacksonville as Computer Power Inc.
For most of its history, it has been the dominant company in its field. Black Knight’s annual report states the company’s system processes 59 percent of all first mortgage loans in the U.S.
Company officials said Wednesday that percentage continues to grow with recent contract wins.
The market share has now reached 62 percent and will go even higher after a new agreement with Bank of America to use the Black Knight system to process first and second mortgage loans.
“That will add a nice percentage to that number,” Sanzone said.
He said implementation of new contracts like that take six to 18 months and the company has several in process.
“So we have a lot of work to do,” Sanzone said.
Black Knight’s shareholder meeting followed Fidelity’s annual meeting in the auditorium of the office complex on Riverside Avenue where both companies are headquartered.
Fidelity retained a 55 percent interest in Black Knight after the IPO.
Fidelity President Michael Nolan said after his company’s meeting that strong housing activity this year should help Fidelity’s main business, title insurance.
“We’re optimistic about 2016,” he said.
Fidelity is known for making investments outside of title insurance through its Fidelity National Financial Ventures unit, including its majority ownership of restaurant company American Blue Ribbon Holdings. Fidelity has looked at several options for ABRH, which operates several restaurant chains, including a spinoff or sale of one or more of the chains.
“It’s a business that’s performing well,” said Chief Financial Officer Anthony Park. “Now it’s just a matter of what’s next.”
Park said it may take a year or two to decide what to do with the restaurant businesses.
“Timing is a little hard to pin down,” he said.
Notably absent from Wednesday’s meetings was Bill Foley, who is chairman of both Fidelity and Black Knight.
National Hockey League owners will vote next week on an application by a group led by Foley for an expansion franchise in Las Vegas, and several sports media outlets this week reported it’s a certainty it will be approved.
Foley and NHL officials have not publicly commented on those reports.