cremation
Last week North America’s largest funeral service company, Service Corporation International (SCI), announced in their 4th Quarter report “On the acquisition front, we had a very active fourth quarter investing $89 million in four separate transactions across the United States and Canada. These transactions added 14 funeral homes and 3 cemeteries, which included 3 combination locations.” And…
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The Washington Post recently printed this article which in part said, “. . . .a distinct shift is underway in how we approach death. More than half of Americans are seeking greener funerals, according to the National Funeral Directors Association, and the percentage is rising. The funeral industry is responding: You can now be entombed in a…
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The largest funeral home and cemetery operator in North America, Service Corporation International, reported 4th Quarter 2022 and Year End 2022 financials earlier this week and one of the things we noticed is that quarterly and yearly revenue was less than 4Q2021 and less than Year End 2021. However, that is not unexpected…
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Sometimes I just come across ideas for Funeral Director Daily articles by accident. On Saturday I was going out for my weekly “reward” of a time at a coffee shop and stopped to buy a newspaper to read while there. Since the local Naples Times-Herald was out, I had a choice of the…
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We will end this week with news of another acquisition in the Death Care space. This press release from earlier this week announced Park Lawn Corporation’s definitive agreement to acquire Kansas City metro area based businesses that include substantially all of the assets of Carson-Speaks Chapel in Independence, Missouri; Speaks Buckner Chapel in Buckner,…
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The last year has brought many changes to Death Care as it pertains to those companies that have been operated in the public markets. Both StoneMor and Dignity plc have been taken out of the public realm and into private ownership space and Batesville has been spun-out of Hillenbrand Industries and purchased by…
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This morning’s article related to the changing face of religion and how that has affected the funeral/memorial/tribute portion of the death care business over the past couple of decades. Over the weekend I noticed a couple of items that signaled current trends and put out the question as to whether or not these…
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Alan Creedy and Danny Jefferson are two veterans in the death care business. They have not only managed and owned funeral homes but have advised hundreds of death care operators. The two of them put out a podcast entitled “Two Guys and a Question“. I recently listened to one of their podcasts that…
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It’s no secret that as a percentage of dispositions, cremation continues to grow. This article from Forbes entitled “Cremation is gaining popularity as funeral costs rise” gives that indication and their thoughts on why that is so. Forbes states in the article that over the last 15 years the United States cremation rate…
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I’ll be the first to tell you that I’m certainly not an expert on the subject of faith preference and burial customs because the community that I served was, I’m guessing, at least 95% Christian of those that practiced faith. However, I know some of the history since as before Vatican II in…
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