Houlihan Lokey Advises Doma Holdings

Houlihan Lokey is pleased to announce that Doma Holdings, Inc. (Doma), a leading force for disruptive change in the real estate industry, has sold certain branches of its West Coast local retail title operations to Williston Financial Group (WFG), a Golden Gate Capital (Golden Gate) portfolio company and a leading provider of title insurance, underwriting, and escrow services for residential and commercial real estate transactions. The transaction closed on May 19, 2023.

Doma is a real estate technology company that is disrupting a century-old industry by building an instant and frictionless home closing experience for buyers and sellers. Doma uses proprietary machine intelligence technology and deep human expertise to create a vastly simpler and more affordable experience for everyone involved in a residential real estate transaction, including current and prospective homeowners, mortgage lenders, title agents, and real estate professionals. The transaction helps drive Doma's new singular strategy and refined focus on its core technology and underwriting business and supports WFG’s growth initiative by significantly expanding the company’s operational presence in the vital Northern and Central California regions.

Williston Financial Group is the Portland, Oregon-based parent company of several national title insurance and settlement services providers, including WFG Lender Services and WFG National Title Insurance Company. It is one of the fastest-growing national title insurance and settlement services providers in the mortgage and real estate services industry.

Golden Gate Capital is a privately held enterprise with more than $19 billion in cumulative committed capital. Unlike conventional private equity firms, Golden Gate operates as a private holding company and recapitalizes, restructures, and ultimately builds meaningful businesses in partnership with management over an indefinite time horizon.

Houlihan Lokey served as the exclusive financial advisor to Doma.