A lot happened at the end of last week in the Death Care industry and we will try to give you just a little idea of that as we catch up from over the weekend.

StoneMor Partners, L.P. announced in this press release that they will be announcing a corporate transition from a Master Limited Partnership to a Delaware “C” Corporation.  According to the press release they have entered into a definitive agreement that will result in this newly created organization.  The agreement will have to close which will take the affirmative vote of the holders of the majority of MLP units.

Again, according to the press release, StoneMor’s largest shareholder, Axar Capital Management, has agreed to vote in favor of the transaction and will be able to designate one nominee to StoneMor’s Board of Directors.

In the press release StoneMor notes that they now own and operate 316 cemeteries and 91 funeral homes.

Funeral Director Daily take:  From our point of view this is a major step forward for StoneMor.  While there are advantages to MLP’s such as a usual regular flow of income for stockholders, MLP’s can cause issues in the credit markets.  It is our opinion that for StoneMor to move forward and grow in the death care business they need to have no issues in the credit markets.

In a report from analysts that you can read here, Service Corporation International (SCI) is expected to have a revenue increase of about 4.2% from the same quarter of a year ago when they report sales and earnings on October 24.  According to Zack’s Investment Research, SCI will announce 3rd quarter sales of about $762.2 million as compared to sales of $731.35 million for the same period last year.

Looking farther out, Zack’s believes that SCI will report full-year sales of $3.2 billion for this year and $3.3 billion for 2019.

ValuEngine (September 17) and Zack’s Investment Research (August 2) have both raised their analyst reports on the stock from “hold” to “buy” and Credit Suisse Group gave the company an “outperform” rating as of last Monday, September 17.

Doug Gober

In a press release issued by Phoenix based The Foresight Companies President Daniel M. Isard last week it was announced that funeral industry veteran executive Doug Gober has joined the company as a partner.

Gober has been in the industry for 39 years beginning as a sales representative in the casket industry.  He has went on to have various executive positions in the industry including with Doody Group, Carriage Services, and Live Oak Bank prior to forming Gober Strategic Capital in 2014.  You can read Gober’s bio from the The Foresight Companies web-site here.

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