Carriage Services’ 4th Q25 and Year-End ’25 Earnings Call “Notes and Quotes”

March 6, 2026/Finance/

Last week funeral home and cemetery operator Carriage Services reported on their 4th Quarter of 2025 and their Year-End of 2025 financial results. Earlier in the week Funeral Director Daily published this article on our thoughts on the reports.

Today, as has become our custom, we provide the transcript, which you can access here, of Carriage Services’ leadership and their discussion with stock analysts in what is known as the “Earnings Call”. Funeral Director Daily also goes through that transcript and provides some quotes from the leaders on their comments and answers to questions.

CEO and Chairman Carlos Quezada in his opening statements:

“. . .2025 was a year of defined purpose and intentional value creation. We continue to build a more scalable operating framework, optimize our supply chain processes, enhance our passion for service mindset and reactivated our disciplined growth strategy through high-quality acquisitions.

At the same time, we further strengthened our balance sheet and reinforced our capital allocation discipline. We are no longer in the rebuilding phase. We are now firmly in the compounding phase.”

“. . . In 2025, the divestiture of noncore businesses negatively impacted revenue by approximately $9 million, and we acquired strategically selected high-quality assets in September, which contributed about $4 million in revenue.

We expect these new businesses to reach $16 million in revenue in 2026. Overall, while we felt the top line impact of the divestitures of noncore businesses in 2025, this portfolio optimization will enhance our ability to grow revenue and margins in the future and showcase our commitment to disciplined capital allocation and return of invested capital.”

“In closing, we’re building a best-in-class death care company defined by premier experiences, a high-performance culture, meritocracy and accountability, all aligned with our 3 strategic objectives: disciplined capital allocation, purposeful growth and relentless improvement. . . “

CEO and Chairman Carlos Quezada responding to a question on “Acquisitions”:

“. . So as you remember, we spent the most part of the last 3 years trying to get all the systems updated, the foundation for growth for the company and really focusing on paying down our debt to a range that we feel comfortable, which is that 3.5x to 4x. We achieved the 4x as we close 2025.

And we truly believe now Carriage at its core is a consolidation company. So really trying to advance and make some rapid moves on growth from an M&A perspective in organically speaking. And I truly believe this is why we want to signal to our investors that within the guidance that we’re ready for that.”

President and COO Steve Metzger responding to the same question about “Acquisitions”:

“. . .So at this point, we — last year, we talked a little bit about investing in more resources internally to make sure we can be more proactive on sourcing deals. And so we are talking to more owners, quite frankly, than at any time during my 8 years at Carriage. And we still balance that with looking for a very particular type of business.

So at this point, we’ve got more that we will be able to report next quarter on some ongoing discussions with owners who are ready. So we’re excited to talk about that when the time is appropriate. But parallel to that, we’re talking with a number of owners who are getting comfortable and we’re getting comfortable with them with some potential opportunities this year. So it’s a little bit of both. We’ve got some that are closer to, call it, seventh or eighth inning and then some that are earlier innings.”

Senior Vice-President, CFO, and Treasurer John Enright responding to a question on “the multiple” in acquisitions and more potential acquisitions:

“. . I don’t think it’s a product of multiples going up. I think we’re seeing those remain pretty steady. And obviously, we remain disciplined in how we approach it. It really is a matter of sellers being ready and us respecting their time lines, but also us being pretty selective. So again, the type of business we’re looking for, it’s a smaller group of businesses that are going to fit that profile. So there’s a number of folks out there, but their time line is just as important as ours.”

Senior Vice-President, CFO, and Treasurer John Enright responding to a question on “CapEx” spending.

“. . . over the last couple of years, as we’ve been very disciplined in our capital allocation, we’ve pulled back a little bit of maintenance. So there’s going to be more maintenance in 2026 than there was in ’25 and ’24. . . . . . For us to continue to deliver 10% to 20% in preneed cemetery sales, we have to develop some cemeteries and there’s also some incremental capital associated with that.”

CEO and Chairman Carlos Quezada responding to a question about “What’s the next initiative?”

“. . . . But most — and most important, our main focus now other than optimizing what we have done over the last few years is really our focus on M&A.”

Disclaimer — The author of this article for Funeral Director Daily is a shareholder of Carriage Services.

More news from the world of Death Care: