Matthews reports 3rd Quarter 2025 Results — “A different company than a year ago”

August 8, 2025/Finance/

Matthews International, parent company of Matthews Aurora Casket, Matthews Cremation Solutions, and now Dodge Company, reported its Fiscal Year 3rd Quarter earlier this week. When you look at the report you have to look at it in somewhat a different way than their report of the 3rd Quarter of 2024.

Since the time of last years 3Q report Matthews has sold the majority of their Brand Solutions segment business SGK into a new entity where Matthews is a minority partner. They used some of those proceeds to pay down debt of about $120 million, and in 2025 their Memorialization segment purchased the well-known and popular Dodge Company.

In addition, Matthews International has been dogged by at least one large stockholder, Barrington Capital, to improve their operations. Partly because of that, Matthews has embarked on a “Strategic Alternative Evaluation” that is supported by J.P. Morgan and according to the 3rd Quarter report “has identified several alternatives for further evaluation and consideration toward improving shareholder value and better alignment with the underlying value of the organization”.

So, when you look at the sales for 3Q25 as compared to 3Q24 it is difficult to have a comparison because of the changes to Matthews businesses. With the sale of the SGK unit, sales for the consolidated Matthews International enterprises have dropped over 18% from 3Q24’s number of $427.8 million to this year’s 3Q total sales of $349.3 million.

However, even subtracting the reported $57.1 million gain on the sale of the SGK business in the 3rd Quarter, Operating Profits for Matthews increased for the comparable quarters from $6.7 million in 3Q24 to about $18 million in 3Q25. And, net income improved from just under 2.0 million in 3Q24 to $15.3 million in 3Q25.

As for the Memorialization segment on its own, Revenue slightly increased from $202.6 million in 3Q24 to $203.7 million in 3Q25. Here’s what Matthews CEO and President Joseph C. Bartolacci said about the Memorialization segment in prepared statements from the 3Q25 press release which you can read here:

“Sales for the Memorialization segment for the fiscal 2025 third quarter were higher than a year ago primarily reflecting the recent acquisition of The Dodge Company. We expect this acquisition to be nicely accretive to earnings as we leverage the benefits of our Memorialization commercial platform and we have already begun to realize synergies from integration. Sales volumes for caskets and cemetery memorials were modestly lower for the quarter primarily reflecting lower U.S. casketed deaths and the prior year sales benefit of granite backlog reductions. However, the earnings impact of these declines were offset by inflationary price realization and benefits from the segment’s ongoing productivity initiatives, which were significant factors in the segment’s improved operating margins.”

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take: I think the moves Matthews International has been making since shareholders issued some concern are good for the greater well-being of the company. My personal opinion has been that, like some companies do, Matthews got excited about certain segments of their operation that they believe had or maybe still have great promise. However, when turning attention to those segments they may have forgotten how the company was built to begin with — with the Memorialization segment.

I now think the Memorialization segment will take on even greater importance with the addition of Dodge Company products to the Matthews toolbox. The “in” with current Dodge Chemical customers may allow the Matthews Memorialization sales department to make an inroads with caskets, cremation products, and cemetery products of those current Dodge customers who are not current Matthews customers. The first-year sales trips to see those customers and introduce them to Matthews products will be very important.

When you look at the consolidated sales of the company in 3Q25 you will see that the Memorialization segment of the company now produces 58.3% of their sales. That is in comparison to a year ago when the Memorialization segment contributed 47.4% to company sales — that was prior to the SGK sale and the Dodge Company acquisition.

An interesting note about Matthews International stock — In the past year Matthews International raised their dividend 4 cents per share to an even $1.00 per share on an annual basis. That increase marks the 30th consecutive year that Matthews raised their dividend payout to shareholders. With a stock price of $25.52 per share as I write this on Wednesday, August 6, that works out to a dividend yield of 3.92% annually.

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