DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
Title insurer Fidelity National Financial Inc. (FNF) has hired
George Scanlon as chief operating officer, taking the executive
away from sister company FIS Inc. (FIS).
The title industry has been hurt by plummeting home sales and
weak capital markets conditions. Fidelity National bolstered the
bottom line by cutting costs--including job cuts--and recently
swung to the black.
Scanlon was previously executive vice president of finance at
FIS and earlier served as the company's chief financial officer.
Last year he helped lead FIS's acquisition of Metavante
Technologies Inc., a provider of processing services to financial
institutions that had been spun off from Marshall & Ilsley
Corp. (MI).
Scanlon's departure from FIS comes as the provider of payment-
and bank-processing services saw a potential $10 billion leveraged
buyout fall through. The company then announced a $2.5 billion
stock repurchase.
Shares of both Fidelity National and FIS were inactive
premarket.
-By Matt Jarzemsky, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2240,
matthew.jarzemsky@dowjones.com