It was announced yesterday in this press release that funeral home and cemetery consolidator Carriage Services had acquired the Rest Haven Funeral Home and Cemetery, based in Rockwall, Texas.  The press release went on to say that this purchase represents Carriage Service’s first foray into the large and strategic market of Dallas-Fort Worth.

Again, according to the press release, Rest Haven has been in business for fifty years and also has locations in Rowlett and Royse City, Texas.  The press release continues as it says that the company also operates a crematory, flower business, and a service for pets.

Finally, the release mentions that Rest Haven serves over 3,000 families annually.

Funeral Director Daily take:  In addition to this press release, Carriage Services offered up its 3rd Quarter financials yesterday and according to remarks from the CEO Mel Lewis, they were pretty pleased with them.

An interesting thing that I noticed is the number of families served by Rest Haven Funeral Home and Cemetery.  The press release lists it as over 3,000 annually. There is no way of telling from the press release if those are funeral service, cremation service, cemetery, or pet care families, but that high number does indicate that this acquisition will be one of the largest operators in the Carriage Services system.

According to Carriage Services earnings report from yesterday, they have served 23,550 at-need families for the first nine months of 2019,  That would extrapolate out to about 31,400 on an annual basis.  Again, there is no way of telling if those families are funeral service, cremation service, or cemetery service, but if you divide that number by the number of properties they indicate that they own – 217 – you come up with an average number of families served per property of 144 (31,400 families served/217 properties).

So, any way that you look at it. . . acquiring a company that serves over 3,000 families, albeit from three funeral homes and one cemetery, is a big deal for Carriage and may indicate that they are hoping to be more of a big game hunter as the acquisition competition moves forward.

Here is the web-site of Rest Haven Funeral Homes and Cemetery

Here is a map of Carriage Services locations in the United States.

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