Musgrove Family Mortuaries joins Foundation Partners Group

We learned last week that one of the northwest United States premier funeral home families has decided to cast their lot with Foundation Partners Group (FPG).  Musgrove Family Mortuaries and Cemeteries, based in Eugene, Oregon, announced last week that they had been acquired by FPG.  You can see the press release from Foundation Partners Group here.

Musgrove Mortuaries and Cemeteries history comes out of the Day and Henderson Funeral Home founded in 1883.  The Musgrove family gained ownership in 1973 and have operated it since.  Mark Musgrove and his brother, Jeff, and their wives have led the business for the past 35 years.  During that time period, Mark Musgrove has served as President of the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA).

According to the press release, the purchase by Foundation Partners Group consists of five business locations of which three are funeral home/cemetery combinations and two are free standing funeral homes.

You can access the Musgrove Mortuaries and Cemeteries web-site here.

Funeral Director Daily take:  2019 has truly been a year of advancement and definition for the Foundation Partners Group.  In our opinion, the group has not only grown in positive perception among traditional funeral home owners, but they have done so while truly defining their goal of being a cremation company going forward.

We have noticed that virtually all of their latest acquisitions are for companies with a strong brand identification for cremation and celebration services as compared to the traditional earth burial funeral companies.

We have watched this phenomena with interest.  In the funeral business world, all traditional funeral homes know that when the percentage of cremation calls goes up, gross revenue will probably go down.  So, in the last 15 years or so, if you are an acquisition firm you have to hope you can not only retain the former firm’s call numbers,, but you also have to hope that you can keep cremation shifts from earth burial to move up at a slow pace rather than a fast pace for maximum profits.

So, when Foundation Partners Group purchases cremation heavy firms, they take one of these variables out of the equation.  Depending on the prices they are paying, it should be a solid strategy for continued growth.  Our guess is that this pattern will continue to move forward for FPG in 2020.

RelatedHere is an article that Funeral Director Daily did almost two years ago when we first noticed this “Cremation first” attitude by Foundation Partners Group.

More from Seeking Alpha on Service Corporation International:  Another good article on SCI was done by author Brian Kindsvater on the growth prospects for the company.  Kindsvater opines that maybe the growth of this company is behind it.  You can read the article here.

 

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