Troubled Doma sells Midwest and Texas retail title branches

Doma sold additional pieces of its retail title production business as part of the company's reorganization as it struggles to become profitable.

Near North Title, a Chicago-area title agency, is the new owner of Doma's Midwest retail offices. The Texas offices were sold to Capital Title of Texas, a part of the Shaddock Title Cos.

This is Near North's second significant transaction this year, following the purchase of another Chicago-based agency, O'Connor Title Guaranty. In this deal it picked up locations in Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Terms of both transactions were not disclosed.

In May, Doma sold 22 Northern and Central California offices to Williston Financial Group in a transaction valued at $24.5 million. That followed a disclosure in its first quarter earnings call that the company was evaluating its organizational structure. Doma has yet to turn a GAAP net profit since it went public in 2021 with big ambitions in title and adjacent businesses.

"These strategic transactions are aligned with our mission-driven go-forward strategy and refined focus on our core underwriting and technology business," said Max Simkoff, Doma CEO, in a press release. "We believe we have found optimal homes for our Local team members in the branches we have sold."

Houlihan Lokey was Doma's financial advisor and Mayer Brown was legal counsel for these transactions.

At the end of June, Doma conducted a one-for-25 reverse stock split that brought its price back up from pre-split levels well below the $1 per share minimum listing price to a close of $7.81 per share on July 19. As it started trading after its special purpose acquisition company merger, Doma closed at $6.84 per share.

The reverse split, however, did not stop the New York Stock Exchange from starting delisting proceedings for Doma's warrants. In anticipation, the NYSE has halted trading in the warrants, which would have allowed holders to exchange 25 of them for one share of Doma stock at a price of $287.50 per share, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Doma will announce its second quarter results on Aug. 8.

In the first quarter, Doma reported a net loss of $42.1 million, an improvement over the fourth quarter loss of $109.4 million and the year ago loss of $50 million.