Fidelity National to Sell Irvine Building, Move Headquarters

Fidelity National Financial Inc. said Thursday that it has agreed to sell its headquarters building in Irvine, leasing back two floors and moving the rest of its operations to a Santa Ana business park.

The nation’s fourth-largest title insurance company will sell its five-story, 100,000-square-foot building on Von Karman Avenue to CarrAmerica Realty Corp., a Washington real estate investment trust. Terms weren’t disclosed.

Fidelity will lease back two floors for its legal and foreclosure departments. The other administrative and finance operations have been moved to a 50,000-square-foot building that the company has leased on Red Hill Avenue in Santa Ana, said Frank P. Willey, Fidelity’s president.

The deal is expected to close in July or early August.

Meantime, though, corporate executives continue to move to Santa Barbara where Fidelity’s chairman, William P. Foley II, lives.

Willey insisted that the company decided to sell its building because it wanted to make a profit in the improving real estate market, not because of persistent rumors that it is moving to Santa Barbara. “It is a terrific time to sell,” he said.

Willey said the company intends to keep its official headquarters in Irvine.