Funeral Director Daily

SCI’s Executive VP and CFO Eric Tanzberger: “. . we’re going to invest capital to the highest return.”

By Funeral Director Daily / August 15, 2025 /

    Service Corporation International (SCI) conducted their 2nd Quarter 2025 Earnings Call where they answered questions from investment experts about two weeks ago.  You can access a copy of the transcript here.   During the Question and Answer session of that call SCI’s Executive Vice-President and CFO Eric Tansberger responded to a question about…

Funeral Women Lead is defining the path for the changing face of funeral service

By Funeral Director Daily / August 14, 2025 /

  I graduated from high school in 1976.  The that time period around the 200th anniversary of our nation brought about profound thought change of women in the workplace.   It was about that time, as you can see by the graphic below, that females caught and eventually passed males in college enrollment.  Up until…

Pension funds investment in Cremation is an interesting development

By Funeral Director Daily / August 13, 2025 /

    Pension funds and endowments have the responsibility of shepherding for safety, growth, and income their assets into a multitude of investments.  I’ve learned that most of those types of investors invest in bonds and private debt for income and stocks for short-term growth.  Some will invest up to 5% of the assets into…

Lucky us. . . . . another Death Care profession movie being filmed

By Funeral Director Daily / August 12, 2025 /

    In the last couple of years we’ve had “The Burial” and most recently “The Mortician” series to pound unflattering stereotypes of the Death Care profession to the consumer world via streaming platforms.  “The Burial” was based on the true life story of funeral home consolidation company The Loewen Group and some of their…

Park Lawn partner taking mortgage bank private

By Funeral Director Daily / August 11, 2025 /

      Last year, almost exactly one year ago this week, Funeral Director Daily published this article announcing that Park Lawn Corporation had the regulatory approvals to sell the company to Veridian Holdings L.P. which was a business made up through a partnership of Homesteaders Life and Birch Hill Equity Partners.   Recently, Birch…

Carriage Services announces 2Q Report: “Back to Acquisitions”

By Funeral Director Daily / August 11, 2025 /

    Funeral Director Daily published this article about 17 months ago that was headlined “Carriage Services’ Mel Payne transitions to advisory role at company”.   The article went on to say that Mr. Payne, who was the founder, Chairman, and CEO of Carriage Services had been in those positions since 1991.   If you have…

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

By Funeral Director Daily / August 8, 2025 /

    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…

Interment eligibility case playing out at Punchbowl National Cemetery of the Pacific

By Funeral Director Daily / August 7, 2025 /

    There is an interesting case, which you can read about and see a news video of here, blowing through the tradewinds of Hawaii at this time concerning the eligibility of burial in a Veterans’ Administration National Cemetery.  The case concerns the potential of a dis-interment of U.S. Army veteran and Honorably Discharged Dr.…

The crisis in health care coverage costs

By Funeral Director Daily / August 6, 2025 /

    The stock of major health care insurer United Health has dropped from $594 per share in April 2025 to Friday’s close at $237 per share.  That’s about a 60% drop in value in a little over 3 months.  And, from the trends that I’ve been watching and some recent announcements I don’t think…

Foundation Partners Group announces new ownership

By Funeral Director Daily / August 5, 2025 /

  Orlando, Florida, based Foundation Partners Group (FPG) caught some by surprise when it announced in a news release on Monday,  “a transformational milestone in its growth journey, including new ownership, increased investment in its people and facilities, and a strategic reorganization to strengthen field operations and support care teams.”   The news release did…