Funeral Director Daily

Access Holdings raises $630 million for investment expansions

By Funeral Director Daily / March 25, 2021 /

We learned last week, and you can read more in in an article found on this page from Access Holdings, that the Baltimore based investment firm had secured $630 million in credit facilities to assist it as it goes forward in building out its platform of companies. As you may know, Access Holdings is the…

Great Britain’s Dignity plc reports 2020 results. . .digital marketing important and growing

By Funeral Director Daily / March 24, 2021 /

Great Britain’s largest purveyor of death care services, Dignity plc, reported their results for 2020 last week in a very comprehensive report.  The results show increased revenues on more death calls, but because of choices made in taking financial impairments on goodwill and trade names it is difficult to get actual year over year comparables.…

“I know how you feel”. . . Prince Harry on child bereavement

By Funeral Director Daily / March 23, 2021 /

Over the weekend I learned that Prince Harry recently authored a forward in a children’s grief book.  The book, “Hospital by the Hill” which you can learn more about here, tells the story of a child who losses their frontline health care worker mother from death due to the pandemic. The book is being given…

How do you handle not being selected?

By Funeral Director Daily / March 22, 2021 /

I’ve been involved in funeral service for over 40 years now and I don’t think I have ever seen an article on this subject.  How does a funeral home owner, manager, or employee react when a family chooses a competitor over them when they thought that family was firmly within the circle of a “solid…

Green up your cremations by recycling

By Funeral Director Daily / March 19, 2021 /

There’s a lot of talk in our industry today about the disposition movements such as recomposition (human composting), alkaline hydrolysis (water cremation), and green burials.  All of those fairly new ideas for human dispositions argue that they are more environmentally friendly than casketed earth burial and cremation. While that is more than likely true. .…

The Acquisition Market: Should you buy or sell

By Funeral Director Daily / March 18, 2021 /

From my point of view at Funeral Director Daily it has appeared to me that the acquisition market has been very quiet during the 2020 pandemic year.  If that is true it makes sense in that individual funeral homes were pretty well consumed with how to satisfy their clientele during the socially distanced period and…

Here comes the competition

By Funeral Director Daily / March 17, 2021 /

We’ve kept you up to date with Recompose founder Katrina Spade and her efforts to make Natural Organic Reduction (NOR) or what some call “human composting” a reality for the consumer public.  In our opinion, it was her drive and determination that proved the science and got the process to legal status in the state…

Give them the tools. . . and get out of the way

By Funeral Director Daily / March 16, 2021 /

Last week I happened to watch President Biden when he addressed the nation pertaining to his recent signing of the latest stimulus bill, known as the “American Rescue Act”.  As I was watching for some reason my mind wandered to a managerial principle that I learned later in my career, but a principle that I…

Did you miss any of these? Our top read stories of the past month.

By Funeral Director Daily / March 15, 2021 /

At Funeral Director Daily our data is getting better.  We now know that some of you read our topics daily.  Some of you are pretty steady daily readers, but miss a day or two.  . . probably because you are busy with your employment and that day you just didn’t have time to take a…

Assurant Preneed acquired by CUNA

By Funeral Director Daily / March 15, 2021 /

CUNA Mutual Group announced last week in this press release that it intends to acquire the preneed funeral business of global conglomerate Assurant.  We told you late last year, in this article, that Assurant was expected to move on from the preneed business as it concentrated on other business elements. The reported purchase price by…