Finance

Matthews International is a “Dividend Aristocrat”

By Funeral Director Daily / September 23, 2024 /

  Just the other day as I was looking at public companies in the Death Care realm I noticed that Matthews International was paying a dividend to stockholders of just over 4% annually.  I look at those type of things because when I make an investment I not only like the stock price to eventually…

Propel Funeral Partners reports Fiscal Year End 2024 numbers

By Funeral Director Daily / September 19, 2024 /

      Propel Funeral Partners (PNP) which I believe is the 2nd largest Death Care provider in Australia and New Zealand and the largest “publicly traded” Death Care company in those countries reported their year-end results in late August.  Propel’s fiscal year covers the time period of July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024.…

A Canary in the Coal Mine?

By Funeral Director Daily / September 17, 2024 /

  Funeral Director Daily recently learned through this late August article in The Times (of London) that Dignity Funerals of Great Britain recently “has moved to reduce its debts after warning of “material uncertainties” over its ability to continue as a going concern, just over a year after it was taken private from the London…

Shared values leads to succession choice

By Funeral Director Daily / September 16, 2024 /

    According to this press release it appears that one of the reasons that the Johnson-Romito Funeral Homes chose Busch Cremation, Burial, and Pre-Planning as their successor firm is the funeral homes’ common values and membership in the Order of the Golden Rule funeral home membership organization.   Both funeral organizations have served the…

Park Lawn Corporation shakes up the C-Suite, adds operating locations

By Funeral Director Daily / September 12, 2024 /

    In this press release from Tuesday, September 10, Park Lawn Corporation (PLC) CEO J. Bradley Green announced both that the PLC leadership team had some changes to it and also that the company had acquired operating locations in North Carolina and Texas.   In probably the most noticeable move of the executives, it…

Batesville moves to expand services to funeral homes, acquires Halcyon

By Funeral Director Daily / September 10, 2024 /

  Roughly 18-months into their journey as an individual operating company, Batesville has made their first acquisition.  And, it should come as no surprise that the acquisition expanded the company’s technology offerings.  It was announced last week, in this press release, that Batesville has acquired Halcyon, a deathcare management system.   Batesville CEO Chris Trainer…

Foundation Partners acquires Cake

By Funeral Director Daily / September 6, 2024 /

    In a press release from yesterday we learned that funeral home and cemetery operator Foundation Partners Group (FPG) has acquired the end-of-life planning company Cake.  The press release, which you can access here, states “Foundation Partners Group, the second largest provider of funeral services in the United States, today announced the acquisition of…

Is private equity “hunting” Carriage Services

By Funeral Director Daily / September 3, 2024 /

  Last week we learned of an August 1, 2024, event which required the filing of a Securities and Exchange (SEC) Form 13G.  That event was the acquisition of more than 5.0% of the common stock of Carriage Services by an entity.   As you can see from this form, provided by the Carriage Services…

Death Care Index rises on the year. . .still trails general indexes

By Funeral Director Daily / August 30, 2024 /

        Today marks the end of the financial markets for the first 2/3 of the calendar year 2024.  We figured that would be a good time to look at how the financial markets have treated those stocks that still remain in the Funeral Director Daily Death Care Index (DCI).   We found…

Revenues, Earnings drop for Security National Insurance and Memorial segments in 2nd Quarter

By Funeral Director Daily / August 20, 2024 /

    When one looks at the totality of the 2nd Quarter 2024 report for Security National Financial Corporation (SNFC) you would have to say that “overall” it was a pretty good quarter for the company —- total revenues increased 2.3% over the same period in 2023 and Earnings before Taxes jumped 15.2% to $9.3…