Funeral Director Daily

What do you see on the Horizon?

By Funeral Director Daily / February 13, 2019 /

The other day a funeral service professional asked me, “What do you see on the horizon for funeral service?”  Since I have not put out any predictions for over a year I thought I would just give an answer on what comes to mind first for me.  Instead of a long, thought out answer sometimes…

Matthews reports 1st Qtr 2019. . . . Memorialization segment increases sales

By Funeral Director Daily / February 12, 2019 /

On January 31 Matthews International, parent company of Matthews Cremation and Aurora Casket, reported its first quarter of fiscal year 2019 which covers the period of October 1, 2018 to December 31, 2018.  You can read the press release from Matthews here. As a company the consolidated sales totaled $374.2 million as compared to $369.5…

What are your alternative plans?

By Funeral Director Daily / February 11, 2019 /

A recent fire in a Canadian funeral home has caused the funeral home’s operating license to be suspended due to the fact that the building is no longer suitable to operate a funeral business out of.  You can read a short article here about this situation in Nova Scotia. According to the article the licensing…

Working for the Weekend

By Funeral Director Daily / February 8, 2019 /

Since it is Friday and I could not find a single great story to bring to you, I thought I would just give you several articles with each having a little tease and let you pick and choose which ones you would like to learn more about. Cape Canaveral Cemetery — The Cape Canaveral Cemetery…

Hillenbrand revenue up, Batesville revenue down, CEO Raver calls Batesville “Lean and Flexible”

By Funeral Director Daily / February 7, 2019 /

Multi-faceted conglomerate Hillenbrand Industries, parent of death care company Batesville, reported higher revenue year over year for their 1st Quarter which ended on December 31.  Hillenbrand, as a whole, reported revenue for the quarter of $410 million which is 3% higher than one year ago.  Hillenbrand’s Processed Equipment Group (PEG) reported revenue growth of 7%.…

Around the Globe: Funeral News from Australia and Spain

By Funeral Director Daily / February 6, 2019 /

Australia – After a series of high profile abuses of the financial services industry in Australia in the last couple of years, the Australian government commissioned High Court Justice and royal commissioner Kenneth Hayne to investigate the complete financial services industry and come up with some ideas on how to regulate such. That report has…

StoneMor receives financing, completes asset review

By Funeral Director Daily / February 5, 2019 /

Yesterday StoneMor Partners issued a press release which you can read here.  In it they “announced a number of key financial and operational updates representing further steps forward in its ongoing turnaround effort.  These steps include a waiver and amedment of certain loan covenants, growth financing from its largest investor and the completion of an…

Finding the Right Managment

By Funeral Director Daily / February 5, 2019 /

I came into the funeral business somewhat reluctantly at age 19 when my father suddenly passed away and mom needed someone who would be interested in carrying on the family business.  I’ve said many times, the Lord knew what he was doing, because as I reluctantly got involved I learned I was pretty good at…

Own the Message

By Funeral Director Daily / February 1, 2019 /

I happened to see this article from the Wise County Messenger the other day.  There is nothing wrong with the article and sometimes news gets out like this.  However, it reminded me that when you are in business, and especially personal service businesses like the death care industry, you want to really “own” the message that…

A little help for our Veterans

By Funeral Director Daily / January 30, 2019 /

Nothing earth shattering today, just a couple articles and information I noticed about America’s veterans and a notice from the Department of Veteran Affairs. One of the things we have written about on Funeral Director Daily is that with the growth of direct cremation there tends to be a few cremated remains that just never…