SANTA ANA, Calif. ^__ First American opened Australia's first title insurance office in 1997, the most recent strategic step in our international expansion. Australia is experiencing new pressures to make the conveyancing process more efficient, just as Canada did several years ago. In Canada, these pressures led to the acceptance of the title insurance product and it appears certain that the same will happen in Australia. We are already enjoying pilot program success with some major lenders, including Citibank and Macquarie Bank.

     The news was also positive with our other international title operations. First American continues to maintain a dominant market share position in Canada, where our expanding operations process an average of 8,000 title orders per month. First Canadian Real Estate Tax Service introduced tax reporting and tax outsourcing services to Canada in March of 1996. The initial customers have been First American's U.S. tax service clients whose portfolios contain Canadian loans. This has generated a high degree of interest among Canadian lending institutions. Also in 1997, First American introduced First Canadian Home Warranty Limited.

     We are the leading provider of title insured programs to lending institutions in England and Wales, where Abbey National's subsidiary, Household Mortgage Company, recently joined our growing list of clients. During 1997 we introduced the Home Ownership Protection Policy, a new residential title product based on First American's highly successful EAGLE Policy. We also began offering title insured products to national home builders. In late 1997 First American became the first company to start a title insurance operation in the Republic of Ireland and we continue to offer a comprehensive package of title services in Scotland.

     The company plans to prudently continue our expansion outside the U.S. by investigating opportunities in countries whose real estate conveyancing systems are well established.

* * *