DOW JONES NEWSWIRES Title insurer Fidelity National Financial Inc. (FNF) has hired George Scanlon as chief operating officer, taking the executive away from sister company FIS Inc. (FIS). The title industry has been hurt by plummeting home sales and weak capital markets conditions. Fidelity National bolstered the bottom line by cutting costs--including job cuts--and recently swung to the black. Scanlon was previously executive vice president of finance at FIS and earlier served as the company's chief financial officer. Last year he helped lead FIS's acquisition of Metavante Technologies Inc., a provider of processing services to financial institutions that had been spun off from Marshall & Ilsley Corp. (MI). Scanlon's departure from FIS comes as the provider of payment- and bank-processing services saw a potential $10 billion leveraged buyout fall through. The company then announced a $2.5 billion stock repurchase. Shares of both Fidelity National and FIS were inactive premarket. -By Matt Jarzemsky, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2240, matthew.jarzemsky@dowjones.com
