Finance
When it is all said and done, corporate conglomerate Matthews International, with a heavy presence in Death Care, will probably be glad that they have left Fiscal Year 2025 behind and are charging into Fiscal Year 2026. FY2025 found Matthews streamline their company by divesting their SGK unit and, while technically FY2026, the…
In a press release issued earlier in January 2026 out of Batesville, Indiana, ClearPoint Federal Bank & Trust made the following statement: “ClearPoint Federal Bank & Trust, a federally chartered savings bank that has been providing trust and recordkeeping services to the funeral and cemetery industry since 1998, announced today that Community…
We learned from this article written by Fort Erie Radio that Service Corporation International (SCI) recently purchased two funeral homes in the Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada, community. According to the article, the Williams Funeral Home and Benner Funeral Services were sold to SCI in January of 2026. According to the article the funeral…
When you follow the public companies in Death Care like I do it is unusual to find articles about them appearing very often. But, last week two separate authors of Seeking Alpha gave opinions on Death Care public company Service Corporation International (SCI). As is my custom with these types of articles I…
I guess “Private” means “Privacy” and that is probably why it is so difficult to get information on how the Private Equity market is doing. The status of the industry is, however, of much interest to those in the Death Care profession because so much money has entered Death Care through private equity in…
The first half of January 2025 saw two news releases come from Matthews International that probably, in a wide scope, are related to each other. First, in early January, this press release titled “Matthews International announces closing of of European Tooling and Packaging Businesses”. Then just last week Matthews International issued this press…
Today is January 20. It is the day that President Trump wanted to institute one of his ideas for making life more “affordable”. That idea is a 10% cap on interest rates on credit card balances for one year. A recent Debt.com survey about funeral expenses and death, which you can access an…
Back in 1971, according to this article from Pew Research Center, 61% of Americans fell into what was called the “Middle Class”. The same article lists that number as 51% in 1923, and according to Finance & Commerce magazine, “Most economists agree the K-shape (consumer divergence) isn’t a short-term anomaly but a continuation of…
The price of equity ownership (stocks) in public companies is a function of supply and demand. The more people that want to own the stock (equity or ownership in the company) the higher the price goes because the stock is in demand. Conversely, when the stock is not in great demand the price drops…
If you would ask Gemini Artificial Intelligence what percentage of funeral homes will be sold in the next five years, here is the answer that you will be given: “While an exact percentage is hard to pinpoint, a significant portion of funeral homes, potentially around 35-40% of owners, plan to retire or sell…
