2010 Annual Report

ABOUT CORELOGIC®

When businesses need to make critical decisions, CoreLogic provides uniquely predictive information configured for their needs.

When conventional information sources can’t penetrate the fog of uncertainty, CoreLogic delivers a clear view of the road ahead.

We enable dynamic insight.

At CoreLogic, we provide business intelligence solutions that allow our customers to achieve dynamic insight—the power to make decisions with confidence in a complex world. Our goal is to help decision makers transcend noise and opinion by providing them facts and informed analysis. We partner with our customers to find answers to their toughest questions, and we succeed when they do.

We start with our CoreLogic real estate and mortgage-finance databases, one of the largest and most comprehensive in the United States. We augment our constantly updated data with proprietary analytics developed by CoreLogic professionals. We shape our multidimensional analysis, predictive models and customized outsourcing services based on deep knowledge of the industries we have served for decades.

From mortgage, property tax and valuation data to fraud, flood risk and geospatial analytics, we provide the nation’s financial institutions, real estate professionals, government agencies and others with both the assurance of reliable data and the power of predictive analytics—helping more than one million users reduce risk, enhance transparency and improve performance.

We believe we are well-positioned organizationally and financially to grow by investing in innovation, expanding into new markets, acquiring complementary businesses and increasing market share across our core businesses. We understand that our company’s future depends on our customers’ ability to make effective decisions based on the information and analytics we provide. At CoreLogic, that is our paramount purpose.

CoreLogic common stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange, symbol CLGX.

Users of our data include:

  • More than 500 lending institutions and 2,500 mortgage bankers, including the top100 mortgage lenders
  • More than 250 Wall Street firms, including the top 10 investment firms
  • More than 15,000 property appraisers
  • More than 750,000 real estate agents and brokerages
  • More than 2,000 title companies
  • All U.S. federal government mortgage agencies
  • Government regulators, including the Federal Reserve, Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), and Federal Home Loan Bank

CoreLogic databases cover 99 percent of U.S. residential real estate property records

To Our Shareholders

We are pleased to report that 2010 was a successful year for CoreLogic. We completed the separation from
First American Financial, achieved $1.6 billion in revenue, improved our business mix by divesting non-core businesses and acquiring more strategic ones, initiated a multi year cost-efficiency program, and commenced a share-repurchase program. Collectively, we expect these actions to build the foundation for enhanced shareholder value in the future.

This foundation is strengthened by a strong balance sheet, resilient earnings performance and the commitment of our more than 10,000 employees. Since the start of 2010 we increased our patent holdings from five to 12 and introduced more than 30 new analytical products and services—all designed to address our customers’ growing risk-management needs. We are dedicated to driving growth through innovation that constantly introduces differentiated value to the markets we serve. Together, we believe these strengths position CoreLogic to deliver long-term growth despite the ongoing instability in the U.S. mortgage finance market.

Delivering shareholder value

While CoreLogic is our new brand identity, we have a long track record of providing data solutions that help financial institutions identify and manage risk and opportunity. In fact, our property data-records business dates back to 1959. Our commitment to customers is woven into the fabric of our company and is what motivates us to deliver shareholder value.

Our focus is on three strategies:

  • Investment in our core businesses to improve operating efficiency and align cost structures with the
    changing landscape in the mortgage industry.
  • Extension into adjacent markets by leveraging our strengths in data and analytics and investing
    in new markets to create additional flexibility and balance the business mix.
  • Balance and discipline around capital management and acquisitions to provide ongoing per-share growth.

Well positioned for growth

As we look ahead, the U.S. mortgage industry environment remains challenging. 2011 will likely be the trough year, with a sustained recovery taking some time to present itself. We believe near-term demand for housing and mortgages will be limited by high inventories, constricted access to credit and persistent levels of negative equity. However, we believe positive forces over the longer term, such as new household formation, increased regulatory clarity and a slowly declining jobless rate, will act to increase demand for housing and mortgages. Whatever the outcome, one principle is clear—households, financial institutions and regulators will be in a better position to manage risk and opportunity with solutions based on timely and accurate data and analytics that bring objectivity and efficiency to their decision making.

“Our comprehensive spectrum of data uniquely equips our customers with the information, analytics and insight they need to manage their business.”

That’s where CoreLogic shines: delivering comprehensive property and financial information, supplemented by diverse consumerbehavioral data wrapped into actionable decision analytics. This is the sweet spot for us—enabling more finely tuned degrees of risk and opportunity management within the U.S. housing and mortgage finance industries. Our comprehensive spectrum of data uniquely equips our customers with the information, analytics and insight they need to manage their businesses.

This established expertise, along with our deep customer relationships and high market share in core businesses, lays the foundation for sustainable leadership across the industries we serve. The positive momentum we experienced in 2010 paves the way for our pursuit of additional opportunities in these and other emerging areas. Extending beyond our U.S. borders, the pending acquisition of RP Data, the leading data and analytics provider to the mortgage finance industry in Australia and New Zealand, signifies our entry into the international marketplace.

Resilient business mix—improving efficiency

As a long-term partner to many leading U.S. financial institutions, we benefit from embedded service-provider relationships in our core businesses. During the global financial crisis, this advantage has meant far less disruption to CoreLogic revenue and profitability than the underlying volumes in the mortgage market would suggest. While underlying mortgage volumes have fallen by 15 percent between 2008 and 2010, our revenues have increased by 5 percent and profitability, as measured by our adjusted EBITDA, increased by 13 percent. Our 2010 financial performance extends a track record of resiliency in the face of U.S. mortgage market instability.

Looking ahead

In 2011, we expect to increase our flexibility by improving our operating efficiency. We believe the global financial crisis, along with consumerist trends, are fundamentally reshaping most of the markets in which we operate. Therefore, our corporate infrastructure and service platforms must be adapted to this new environment. We began this effort in 2010 and will continue investing over the next few years to transform our operational platforms, rationalize our cost structures and optimize information technology services. In 2011, our goals are to maintain operating leverage and margins in our outsourcing services, streamline the legal entity structure to maximize our corporate tax efficiency and consolidate our corporate IT services footprint to eliminate duplication across the enterprise. As a result, beyond 2011 we expect a significant ongoing return on investment to materialize that will further improve our financial performance.

“We will continue to transform CoreLogic by leveraging our
financial strength to strategically expand the business to provide
our customers with unique and valuable solutions.”

In summary, we will continue to transform CoreLogic by leveraging our financial strength to strategically expand the business to provide our customers with unique and valuable solutions. Our innovation capabilities are strong; our data resources unmatched. Executing our strategy—investing in core businesses, extending into adjacent and new markets, and maintaining balance and discipline around capital management and acquisitions— is our path for growth that will deliver value to our shareholders.

Parker S. Kennedy
Executive Chairman and
Chairman of the Board
Anand K. Nallathambi
President and
Chief Executive Officer

DATA AND ANALYTICS

For our customers, knowledge is power—the power to choose, to take on risk, to grow. We give them that power.

Data and Analytics delivers relevant, unique, sustainable value that enables commercial banks, mortgage lenders and brokers, investment banks, fixed-income investors, real estate agents, property and casualty insurance companies, title insurance companies and government-sponsored enterprises, to make better-informed decisions. Whether a global investment firm is managing a multibillion-dollar portfolio, a credit union is processing a mortgage application, or a real estate brokerage is assessing residential property listings, all require comprehensive data and finely engineered analytics tailored to answer critical questions about the underlying assets’ inherent risk and opportunity. Data and Analytics provides those answers. We engage with our customers to understand business from their perspectives, then configure our comprehensive consumer, property and financial information, along with sophisticated predictiveanalytics technology, to produce tailored solutions that make a lasting impact.

The Data and Analytics segment is divided into two groups. Risk and fraud analytics helps our customers implement asset-allocation and fraud-prevention strategies by delivering refined predictive tools based on reliable data and multidimensional analytics. Specialty finance solutionsprovides an array of credit, broker and multiple listing service (MLS) products that help customers process loans, streamline operations and manage risk.

2010 Highlights

  • Introduced more than 30 new products
  • Awarded 6 patents for new analytic processes
  • Increased fraud detection revenue by 30 percent

A Conversation with George Livermore, Group Executive for Data and Analytics:

George, what drives the Data and Analytics team?

We’re driven by our commitment to engage with and serve our customers. From this rises a passion at every level of our organization to create greater business transparency and understanding that simplifies otherwise complex decision variables. By working closely with our customers, their challenges become our own. We become stakeholders in their success. It’s extremely satisfying to see, for example, a customer’s fraud-loss rate decline as a result of an analytical process that we developed. It’s this passion that we look for in our employees, so that everyone on the team comes to work motivated and prepared to help our customers conduct business more profitably.

How did the Data and Analytics segment perform in 2010?

We had a solid year. Our revenue rose 4 percent despite a significant drop in mortgage originations—a primary source of demand for our property reports, MLS products and automated-valuation products. We were able to overcome the headwinds of the declining origination climate by introducing new products based on customer-specified needs, especially in fraud detection, where revenues increased 30 percent, and by capitalizing on rising demand for our analytical and advisory services—for example, due diligence advisory services to lenders. We also successfully expanded the number of customers we serve and increased the amount of business we conduct with the nation’s top mortgage originators and servicers, while at the same time signing new contracts with government agencies and regulators.

“We engage with our customers to understand business from their perspectives, then configure our unrivaled consumer, property and financial information, along with sophisticated predictive-analytics technology, to produce tailored solutions that make a lasting impact.”

How important is innovation to Data and Analytics?

Our growth stems from innovation rooted in customer engagement. We focus on the real-world needs of our customers, and we work hard to develop innovative ways to help them. As a result, we’re often able to provide answers that no one else can. Put another way, we succeed when our customers do. As an outcome of our customer focus, we launched 30 new products in 2010 and were awarded six new patents, including new methodologies that improve our ability to monitor consumer credit and other risks associated with an individual, property or neighborhood; or a specific loan, security or portfolio.

Can you give an example of a recent innovation and how it helps customers make better decisions?

Sure. One example comes from the risk-management area, where we are transitioning from a “snapshot” profile to a “surveillance” model that dynamically monitors the factors affecting risk at the level of an individual loan, property or a mortgage-backed security. Instead of supplying customers periodic reports, we can alert them in realtime whenever an event impacts the risk profile of a particular asset— such as when the market value of a property declines or a borrower takes out a second mortgage This is a new way of solving an old problem that we recently made possible by marrying our comprehensive data, including contributory data from our customers, with our advanced businessintelligence technology. In this way, we’re making it possible for our customers to accurately assess their risk exposure at any moment, which empowers them to make smarter asset-allocation decisions.

How will Data and Analytics contribute to the growth of CoreLogic in 2011 and beyond?

We will focus on innovation that satisfies needs we jointly identify with our customers, execute on strategic international expansion initiatives and implement new, more efficient business practices that increase profitability. We’re particularly excited about our recent decision to acquire RP Data, the leading provider of residential and commercial property data and analytics in Australia and New Zealand. As a minority shareholder and partner with RP Data for four years, this action represents a significant expansion for us into the Asia-Pacific region. Our plans also call for expanding our presence in the United Kingdom and we look forward to serving more customers across the globe.

These actions will allow CoreLogic to weather the current market conditions, and will enable us to operate from a position of strength as we emerge from the current instability in the U.S. mortgage market. The quality of our data, caliber of our people, pursuit of innovation and commitment to ongoing engagement with customers are the foundation on which our success in Data and Analytics rests.

Business and Information Services

We immerse ourselves in understanding our customers so we can provide clear insight to better manage their business.

The Business and Information Services segment serves U.S. lenders, servicers and insurers, as well as customers in the energy, oil and gas, telecommunications and utility industries. As a leading provider of mortgage services, Business and Information Services is a trusted partner to lenders who need to quickly and accurately value properties, process and service loans, collect and pay property taxes, understand flood risk, manage default-related vendors and reduce (asset-management) costs. We also help property and casualty insurance companies assess natural hazard risk and assist oil and gas companies, utilities and telecommunications companies with accurate and sophisticated geospatial and regulatory information.

A Conversation with Barry Sando, Group Executive for Business and Information Services:

Barry, how has Business and Information Services secured and retained so many major customers?

We have long-standing relationships with many of our customers and serve them reliably and effectively. We improve their business outcomes by delivering insight that helps them identify risk and add flexibility that helps them reduce costs.

Lenders who process tens of thousands of loan transactions a month need instant access to accurate, up-to-date information every day, no exceptions. They know we can provide that seamlessly, in a format best suited for their needs. Because we provide tools that help lenders and servicers throughout the mortgage life cycle, we understand the entire process from their points of view. These close partnerships enable us to adapt to each customer’s changing needs. And in volatile and difficult times, such as we’ve seen in the past few years, that flexibility has served our customers well.

“Because we provide tools that help lenders and servicers throughout the mortgage life cycle, we understand the entire process from their points of view.”

For example, mortgage default rates have soared, burdening many servicers with unprecedented work volumes and risk levels. When a borrower struggles to pay a loan, servicers rely on our decision tools to develop the best path of assistance through a loan modification process. And if a borrower defaults on a loan, lenders depend on our default-management tools, such as Vendorscape®, to identify, manage and understand the services and vendors they’ll use during the default process. We also are building strong customer relationships in a new market—insurance—using the same approach we developed with mortgage lenders and servicers, working side by side to understand their business needs and respond with relevant, reliable and precise information. The success of this approach is illustrated by the solid demand we’ve seen for our natural hazard risk products.

2010 Highlights

  • Industry leader in flood and tax mortgage services
  • Significant growth in BPO and REO businesses
  • Growing demand for default-management technologies
  • Created a national earthquake analytic
  • Awarded patent for GIS-based population assessment methodology

Describe some of the innovations coming from your team in 2010.

One example is in the area I just mentioned, loan modifications. Our Default and technology group developed Intellimods™, an industry-first system that automates how lenders make loan modification decisions, based on a customized set of business rules. Intellimods makes this process faster and easier compared to existing methods that may require a manual data lookup from traditional spreadsheets. Our customers have been quick to adopt this tool, and we expect that level of interest to continue in 2011. Our geospatial business launched several new natural hazard products in 2010, including a state-of-theart national earthquake model. We also were awarded a patent for a GIS-based population assessment methodology—an important technology with a variety of applications in a number of industries. These additions to our already-strong flood product line offer a unique geospatial suite to our insurance, energy and utility customers; one that enables more accurate, granular, and simultaneous risk assessment of an individual property for projected natural hazards.

How did Business and Information Services perform in 2010?

The word that best summarizes our performance in 2010 is “resilience.” While mortgage originations were down about 22 percent from 2009, our revenues declined by only about 2 percent. We benefited from strong market share among the largest lenders, solid performance from our default-technology products and services, and a healthy mix of mortgage application-related product revenue. In addition, we enjoyed solid growth in markets unrelated to mortgage, driven by our geospatial products.

What will drive the segment’s growth in 2011 and beyond?

Business and Information Services will grow over the long term by building market share in our origination and defaultservicing businesses. We’ll do that by continuing to serve our customers’ needs better than the competition. It’s important to note that as mortgage originations volumes return, lenders may be hesitant to ramp up their internal operations. We are prepared to respond with technologies and services to meet growing demand for those companies who choose to partner with us. In addition, we expect to benefit from our investments in geospatial innovation in markets outside the mortgage industry, such as insurance. And we are making it a priority to streamline and improve our cost structure to keep prices competitive, while providing customers with higher quality and more choices. We also expect to benefit from revenue improvements in the default business, where we believe we’re especially well positioned. CoreLogic is one of the top three suppliers of broker price opinions, and our real estate owned (REO) services group provides asset-management disposition for three of the top four servicers. Our recent acquisition of RealtyBid™, a leading online REO bidding site, will further bolster this position. We are also developing new technologies that we believe will increase our footprint in the default-services market.

Is international expansion an important part of your growth strategy?

We see opportunity in Latin America, where economic growth has created rising asset values and a growing middle class that demands better government services, which consequently require improved property tax records and collection rates. We are currently operating a tax-program trial in Mexico, and we are looking for opportunities to expand throughout Latin America. In Europe, our geospatial team is increasing its revenue from European reinsurers who need U.S. natural hazard information, and we are actively seeking new customers and potential new markets there as well.

Finally, Barry, what is it that makes you most optimistic about Business and Information Services’ prospects?

Our people. In the end, everything we’ve discussed—customer relationships, unique analytics, innovation and expansion—occurs because of the hard work and dedication of our employees. Everyone within the Business and Information Services

Financial Summary

(in thousands)

  2008 2009 2010
Data and Analytics
Revenue $724,442 $677,636 $704,878
Pretax income 124,199 143,368 125,133
Equity in earnings of affiliates 6,205 8,569 8,298
 
Business and Information Services
Revenue $751,087 $911,030 $892,063
Pretax income 113,389 150,041 143,540
Equity in earnings of affiliates 40,858 69,602 61,650
 
CoreLogic consolidated (1)
Revenue $1,542,988 $1,700,692 $1,623,272
Pretax income 22,234 100,728 85,050
Equity in earnings of affiliates 23,640 48,719 41,641
 
Total debt $613,685 $570,457 $720,889
Cash on balance sheet 287,076 467,510 447,145
Diluted shares outstanding 92,516 95,478 112,363


(1) Employer Legal and Marketing Services segment was discontinued as of 12/31/2010 to reflect the sale of the employer and litigation consulting businesses



 

CoreLogic Profile

CoreLogic is a leading provider of consumer, financial and property information, analytics, and services to business and government. The company combines public, contributory and proprietary data to develop predictive decision analytics and provide business services that bring dynamic insight and transparency to the markets it serves. CoreLogic has built among the most comprehensive U.S. real estate, mortgage application, fraud, and (loan-performance) databases and is a recognized leading provider of mortgage and automotive credit reporting, property tax, valuation, flood determination, and geospatial analytics and services. More than one million users rely on CoreLogic to assess risk, support underwriting, investment and marketing decisions, prevent fraud, and improve business performance in their daily operations.

We began operating as CoreLogic, Inc. on June 1, 2010, following the spin-off of our financial services businesses, including our title insurance business, into a separate, publicly traded company. Before June 1, 2010, we operated as The First American Corporation. We changed our name to CoreLogic, Inc. effective June 1, 2010 and began trading under the ticker symbol “CLGX” on the New York Stock Exchange on June 2, 2010.

Board of Directors

 

Parker S. Kennedy
Executive Chairman and Chairman of the Board, CoreLogic
Executive Chairman and Chairman of the Board, First American Financial Corporation



Matthew B. Botein
Director, CoreLogic
Managing Director and Head of BlackRock Alternative Investors, BlackRock Inc.



J. David Chatham
Director, CoreLogic
President and Chief Executive Officer, Chatham Holdings Corporation
(Audit Committee, Compensation Committee, Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee)



Christopher V. Greetham
Director, CoreLogic
Former Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer, XL Capital Ltd. (Compensation Committee)




Anand K. Nallathambi

President and Chief Executive Officer, CoreLogic




Thomas C. O’Brien
Director, CoreLogic
Chief Executive Officer and President, Insurance Auto Auctions, Inc.
(Compensation Committee, Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee)



D. Van Skilling
Director and Lead Director, CoreLogic
President, Skilling Enterprises
(Audit Committee, Compensation Committee, Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee)



David F. Walker
Director, CoreLogic
Former Director, Program of Accountancy,
University of South Florida, St. Petersburg
(Audit Committee)



Mary Lee Widener
Director, CoreLogic
Community Investment Consultant



Safe Harbor Statement:

This annual report contains forward-looking
statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the
U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, including statements related to our future financial performance and creation of shareholder value, and our long-term growth strategy including international expansion of our operations, new product development and innovation, creating operational efficiency and our ability to perform under current conditions in the U.S. mortgage market. These forwardlooking statements may contain the words “intend,” “anticipate,” “expect,” “plan,” “predict,” “estimate,” “project,” “will” or other similar words and phrases. Forwardlooking statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by such statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: (i) adverse economic conditions that could affect the markets and customers we serve, (ii) our ability to access needed data from external sources, (iii) our ability to bring new products to market, (iv) regulatory developments with respect to use of consumer data and public records, (v) our ability to complete acquisitions or divestitures on satisfactory terms or realize any expected benefits from such transactions, (vi) our ability to provide adequate security in the electronic transmission of sensitive data, and (vii) other risks identified in our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K. All forward-looking statements are made and based on information available to CoreLogic on the date of this annual report. CoreLogic does not assume, and expressly disclaims, any obligation to update such statements.