Carriage Services 2nd Quarter Earnings Call: Dealing with lower volumes

August 17, 2026/Finance/

On August 6, Carriage Services held their quarterly earnings call to give their opinion of the company’s 2nd Quarter 2026 results and answer questions from analysts who cover the company. We’re ten days removed from that date, but the comments of the Carriage Services’ management team are still relative so we present you with our Earnings Call Recap for Carriage Services today.

Funeral Director Daily receives a transcript of the entire conversation through our subscription with Seeking Alpha. You can access that transcript here (although you may be subject to a paywall). In this article we will highlight some of the discusion with, as has been our practice, no comment from Funeral Director Daily.

A new feature of Seeking Alpha is that they now provide a summarization of the Earnings Call via an artificial intelligence system that they use. Funeral Director Daily will also provide some of that AI commentary at the end of our article.

Vice-Chairman and CEO Carlos Quezada’s and exerpts from his Opening Statement on the Earnings Call of August 6:

“Regarding the operating environment, the second quarter unfolded differently than we anticipated at the beginning of the year. Beginning in January, mortality trends softened across much of the country and remained below our historical expectations throughout the first half of the year. During the second quarter, comparable funeral volume declined by 3.5% and for the first 6 months ending June 30 by 4.7%, both compared to last year.”

“. . . As everyone on this call understands, mortality is the primary demand driver for a funeral business. It is also one of the few variables we simply cannot control. What we can control is how we operate our business. I am proud of the way our teams responded. Rather than allowing lower funeral volume to dictate our performance, our field leaders and the support center teams remain focused on execution, operating discipline, and serving families exceptionally well.”

“. . . .Looking ahead, as we enter the third quarter, we were encouraged to see funeral volume return to positive growth during the month of July. While one month certainly does not establish a long-term trend, it is an encouraging indicator after a softer first half of the year. Our strategy has never depended on perfectly favorable market conditions. It depends on consistently operating better today than we did yesterday. That philosophy remains unchanged. Operationally, we continue to make meaningful progress across several initiatives that will strengthen Carriage over the long term. . . . ”

President and COO Steve Metzger in response to a question about underperforming properties and the possibility of future divestment of properties:

“. . . We really, over the past 5 years, have identified those businesses that didn’t really fit our long-term growth model, so yes, we’re largely through that process. There are always opportunities with a few businesses to pick that performance back up, but we don’t anticipate any divestitures moving forward.”

Vice-Chairman and CEO Carlos Quezada in response to a question pertaining to the negative case volumes for the first-half of 2026 and if there is an improving trend:

“Yes, so we were negative on volume every month from January through June. Now, it was a declining negative, right? Started on the high single digits. It started to really go down all the way through the end of June. But then as we came into July, it really flipped now into growth on a year-over-year basis on volume, and it is decent growth, so it’s encouraging that we see that. Declining of the negative down all the way to the end of the first half and then now going into the positive as we start the second half.”

President and COO Steve Metzger responds to a question about “Acquisitions”:

” . . as it relates to the acquisitions, it really is all around timing. So the activity remains as active as I’ve seen during my time with Carriage. And a lot of the focus is on the valuations and bridging any gaps there might be on expectation and kind of where we think that valuation should land, so those conversations are ongoing right now. We had mentioned in the last quarter’s call that we really thought there’d be more activity that we’d be in a position to discuss in the back half of the year.

We continue to think that’s going to be the case and so over the next 5 months we believe that the conversations we’re having are going to progress to a stage where we can provide some more detail, but we’re very bullish and excited about the opportunity. But as you know, you’ve been following us for a while, we’re pretty selective and we want to remain disciplined, so when we’re looking at valuations and we’re looking at properties, we’ve got to make sure there’s a path for us to help grow those through our leadership. We’ve got to make sure that the valuation makes sense, not only for the seller, but also for Carriage and our shareholders.”

Here’s what Seeking Alpha’s AI generated “Earnings Call Insights” (which you can access here, possibly subject to a paywall) noted in their “Sentiment Analysis” of the Earnings Call:

“Analysts appeared neutral to slightly negative, repeatedly pressing on volume visibility, cost sustainability, overhead, and M&A timing, including “what needs to happen for this kind of catch up in volumes in the back half”

“Management tone was slightly positive in prepared remarks and more measured in Q&A, emphasizing controllables and acknowledging uncertainty, including “one month certainly does not establish a long-term trend”

“Versus Q1, management language shifted from expecting normalization (“As we look ahead to April, we expect funeral volume to be on a normal trend” (CEO Carlos Quezada, Q1)) to describing realized softness and only early signs of improvement (“mortality trends softened” and “encouraged to see… July”

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