Stewart Information Services Corporation (NYSE:STC) Q3 2023 Results Conference Call October 26, 2023 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Brian Glaze - Principal Accounting Officer, Senior VP and Controller

Frederick Eppinger - CEO and Director

David Hisey - CFO and Treasurer

Conference Call Participants

Bose George - KBW

Soham Bhonsle - BTIG

John Campbell - Stephens Inc

Operator

Hello, and thank you for joining the Stewart Information Services Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note today's call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]

It is now my pleasure to turn today's conference over to Brian Glaze, Chief Accounting Officer. Please go ahead, sir.

Brian Glaze

Thank you for joining us today for Stewart's Third Quarter 2023 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 Hisey. 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. 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

Thank you for joining us today for Stewart's Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. Yesterday, we released financial results for the quarter and David will review these in a minute. Before doing so, I'd like to update you on our view of the market and our continued progress on important initiatives that we believe will set Stewart up for long-term success.

This quarter, we are proud to celebrate 130 years of business as a pioneer in the title industry and also coming up on our 30 years as a listed company on the New York Stock Exchange. These milestones caused me to reflect on the last 4 years. And looking back, I see that we have made great strides in fundamentally improving Stewart's operating and financial performance to better position ourselves for even more prosperous future.

Although the current economic environment continues to pose significant short-term challenges, we have materially improved our business, creating a strong and more resilient enterprise that will thrive over a full real estate cycle. Even in light of the current economic environment, we continue to intensely focus on our journey to become the premier title service company. We are managing through a challenging environment where we believe mortgage rates will remain elevated into 2024. Rates increased throughout the third quarter to around 7.5%, where they were previously in the high 6% range at the close of the second quarter. Higher mortgage rates continue to impact transaction volumes and we find ourselves at historic lows for sale of existing homes.