Finance

Park Lawn adds Colorado locations, completes leadership transformation

By Funeral Director Daily / June 2, 2025 /

    In this very brief press release issued out of Toronto, Ontario, last weekend funeral home and cemetery operator Park Lawn Corporation announced that they had acquired two free-standing funeral homes in Colorado’s Western Slope.  The press release announced that they had purchased substantially all of the assets of Hood Mortuary located in Durango,…

Moody’s downgrades U.S. government credit rating — what might that mean for funeral homes

By Funeral Director Daily / May 21, 2025 /

  Last week, as you can read in this article, credit rating company Moody’s downgraded the status of the United States Government debt from Aaa to Aa1 – which is a downgrade of one notch.  In making the recent downgrade, the article states:   “The US has lost its last perfect credit rating, as influential…

Matthews acquires Dodge Company

By Funeral Director Daily / May 13, 2025 /

  On May 1 of this year Matthews International announced the closing of the sale of their SGK Brand Solutions Segment in this press release.   According to this press release that was posted yesterday from Matthews International it didn’t take long to put some of those proceeds to work as they announced the acquisition…

Matthews International 2nd QTR Report: Interesting times

By Funeral Director Daily / May 9, 2025 /

  Funeral Director Daily presents you the final report of our hat trick of financial reports this week.  Today we bring you the results of Matthews International’s operations for the period of January thru March 2025 which is the company’s 2nd fiscal quarter of the year.  Earlier this week we reported on the same period…

Better Place Forests to become a Non-Profit

By Funeral Director Daily / May 8, 2025 /

    Better Place Forests is one of those ideas whose time has come.  As a 33-year funeral director who has seen the social mores of Death Care move away from the traditional options during that time, I see where there is a place for ideas like Better Place Forest to catch on with a…

Carriage Services continues “Positioning March”

By Funeral Director Daily / May 7, 2025 /

  I read, watch, and listen about what is happening in the Death Care business.  I do that on an overall scale and I also do it with as many individual companies as possible.   Over the last couple of years as I have read, watched, and listened to items concerning funeral home and cemetery…

SCI’s 1st Quarter 2025 shows “Strong” Funeral side performance

By Funeral Director Daily / May 5, 2025 /

  Service Corporation International (SCI) reported their 1st Quarter 2025 financial results last week and in doing so showed an overall revenue increase of 2.8% in year over year results.  Total Revenue for the quarter was $ 1.074.2 billion as compared to the 1st Quarter of 2024 which came in at $ 1.045.4 billion.  …

PlotBox receives private equity investment

By Funeral Director Daily / April 25, 2025 /

  We didn’t quite make it through the week without being able to give you another article which again shows a “bullishness” in the greater Death Care profession and industry.  As I’ve noticed several times recently, at the same time that many Death Care retail operators are “skittish” about the future of their business it…

Private Equity makes investment in Alkaline Hydrolysis

By Funeral Director Daily / April 17, 2025 /

  When an investment is made in a business venture the investor has high hopes for a multiple return on their investment.  That can certainly be said for private equity companies who make some of those investments.   Unlike individual investors where passion may fuel the investment, most private equity investments are done with a…

Seeking Alpha says SCI will “benefit from an aging population”

By Funeral Director Daily / April 11, 2025 /

    Investor network Seeking Alpha published an article last week in regards to investment opportunities in the largest publicly-held Death Care operator Service Corporation International (SCI).  The article was titled, “Service Corporation:  Benifiting from Aging Population, Strong Buy”.   From my point of view I will not go into the article but tell you…