As many times happens with me, I learn something from a news item or items and then try to convert that knowledge to the funeral industry and try to figure out if or how what I’ve learned will translate to our profession. So was the case this week when I saw some public relations for a company called Lantern, whose website you can see here, that has a slogan saying, “End of Life Planning”. I also saw an advertisement for […]
Matthews International reported their Fiscal year 2021 2nd Quarter results last week and with the report we noticed how it is impossible to not notice that their Memorialization business segment which consists of Aurora Casket, Matthews Cremation, and their cemetery, memorial, and mausoleum division, is increasingly leading the company. The other two segments of Matthews International’s operating portfolio consist of what they call their Industrial Technologies segment and their SGK Brand Solutions segment. The company as a whole reported sales […]
For the first time that I can remember since I have followed what is termed the Death Care Index (DCI), the DCI for a period of time has outpaced the standard measures of America’s public companies, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Nasdaq, and the S & P 500. For the time period of January 1, 2021, through the close of business last Friday, April 30, 2021, the Death Care Index has grown at a pace of 17.7%. The DCI, […]
An accident in 2017 that took the life of a funeral home worker has the State of Maine legislature searching for answers on how to make funeral vehicles safer for death care employees. Last week, according to this article, the Maine Legislature Committee on Innovation, Development, Economic Advancement and Business “ordered the Board of Funeral Services to develop new rules to protect drivers and passengers by January“. At real issue here is the use of different utility vehicles commonly used […]
I saw that quote in Microsoft’s 1st Quarter 2021 report last week and wondered how that will affect the death care industry. That’s not a unique thought for me because if you’ve followed my writing for any length of time you know that I like to look at other industries and then take what they are learning and try to figure out how it will eventually affect us. I think what Microsoft had to say speaks volumes to how we […]
Carriage Services was the first of our public death care companies to report on their 1st quarter of 2021 (January thru March 2021 numbers) when they did so last week. Even knowing that January 2021 had a high number of additional mortality in the United States because of the number of Covid-19 deaths, you have to look at the Carriage Services financials and be somewhat impressed. When the final mortality numbers come out as to additional Covid-19 related deaths that […]
Since about 2010 I’ve been associated with a couple of non-profit Senior Housing, Home Care, and Hospice businesses, Knute Nelson and Ethos Home Care and Hospice. I’ve chaired both organizations which have a combined revenue of about $60 million. I tell you that only because I try to stay up to date with those industries as much as possible. And, just yesterday I received a newsletter from a senior health organization with the title “Long-term Care Deaths and Cases are […]
The longer I am affiliated in the death care profession it seems the less I know. I know that is not true, but I am always amazed when I find some type of business out there in the death care profession that I did not know existed. There are a lot of concepts and a lot of ways to make that consumer client connection with those concepts and handle the final disposition of a human being. It’s pretty certain that […]
A big part of our mission at Funeral Director Daily is to look around the death care industry and report what we see happening in the profession back to our fellow funeral directors. Our thought is that those fellow funeral directors were much like I was in my 35 year front-line funeral service career — that is, too busy dealing with the day to day activities of what is going on in their own funeral homes to be constantly looking […]
StoneMor, Inc., the Pennsylvania based consolidator and operator of cemeteries and funeral homes, has had a busy April. We’ve seen Moody’s upgrade their credit rating, we’ve seen insider trading purchases of the stock, and we’ve seen an announcement of refinanced debt. That and more leads a press release from Moody’s to state, “. . . .StoneMor’s increased liquidity position will be used to make strategic acquisitions to increase scale and grow profitability.” These announcements from StoneMor come on the heels […]
