By Mark Basch
Contributing Writer
Less than a year after Fidelity National Financial Inc. reacquired Lender Processing Services Inc., the company filed plans Tuesday for an initial public offering of the former LPS business under its new name, Black Knight Financial Services Inc.
Black Knight provides technology and analytics services for mortgage lenders and is the dominant player in its field. More than half of all U.S. first mortgage loans are processed through Black Knight’s system.
The IPO filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission does not say how many shares will be issued to the public. However, it does say that Fidelity will continue to have a majority voting interest in the business.
Thomas H. Lee Partners, which currently has a minority stake in Black Knight, will also continue to have an interest.
Just two weeks ago, Fidelity Chairman Bill Foley told the Daily Record that it was “unbelievable, really dumb” for Fidelity to let LPS get away in the first place. He said now that it owns that business again, “we’re not giving it back.”
The mortgage processing business started more than 50 years ago as a Jacksonville company called Computer Power Inc. It was sold to Alltel Corp. in 1991.
Fidelity bought it from Alltel in 2003 and then decided to move its corporate headquarters from Santa Barbara, Calif., to the mortgage business’ offices on Riverside Avenue in Jacksonville.
Fidelity, which is mainly a title insurance company, spun off its financial processing businesses into a separate company called Fidelity National Information Services Inc., or FIS, in 2006. Two years after that, FIS spun off the mortgage processing business into a separate company called Lender Processing Services.
When Fidelity National Financial decided it wanted LPS back, it agreed to buy the company and completed the deal in early January of this year. It then renamed the mortgage operations as Black Knight.
According to the IPO filing, Black Knight would have produced revenue of $634.5 million and net income of $9.8 million in the first nine months of this year if it had been a separate company.
Thomas Sanzone, who joined Fidelity last year and has been CEO of the Black Knight unit, will be president and CEO of Black Knight, the filing said. Foley will be executive chairman.
Black Knight expects its stock to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “BKFS.”
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