Monday, May 6, 2013

Fortune 500 Top Companies for 2013

Not surprisingly Fidelity National Financial - the parent company of Fidelity National Title Company and Fidelity National Title Insurance Company ranks in this elite group.  As my background is not in economics I can only report on the statistics from the internet - but as a former client/customer of Fidelity National Title - I cannot help but wonder what would be the effect of paying claims would have on the bottom line?  And what would the effect be if the employees were not stockholders.

Ranking                                               #353
Revenues                                             $7.3 ($b)
Profits                                                  $606.5 ($mm)
Total return to investors (annual %)    52.1 (1 year)
Earnings per share annual rate             35.3% (5 year)
Profit as % of stockholder's equity       14.2%

As I mentioned this is not my area of expertise but it certainly seems to be profitable to be a stockholder in FNF but I cannot help but wonder if this profit is not at the detriment to those of us who were clients/customers of this company - with our premiums contributing to these profits.  And the denial/degrading of claims obviously also boosts these profits.