Back in 1962 Robert L. Waltrip owned one family owned funeral home in Houston, Texas. And then everything changed when he purchased his second funeral home in Houston. That led to his adding a 3rd funeral home and forming a company, now known as Service Corporation International (SCI), that owns and operates over 1900 death care facilities across North America. The company has been a great American success story. And, as they say, “Imitation is the greatest form of flattery”. […]
While I have not stayed up to date on the federal government dictates of the Biden administration, the moratorium on student debt payment is, I believe, ending on February 1, and may be extended. The moratorium program has proven to be well received, as according to the article mentioned in the next paragraph, almost 90% of those with federal student loans are taking advantage of the moratorium. I had not thought of this program in the coronavirus relief measures until […]
Last week we received news that Foundation Partners Group, the Orlando based funeral, cremation, and cemetery business operator made another acquisition that added eight death care locations to its portfolio as well as a pet death center. The company purchased Cascade Funeral Directors, Inc. (Cascade) which encompassed the aforementioned companies. The acquisition added locations in the Portland and Salem, Oregon locales. It included six Crown Memorial Centers, Canby and Molalla Funeral Chapel, Autumn Funeral Cremation & Burial, and Dignified Pet […]
As we wrap up another week at Funeral Director Daily we bring you some news that is seeming to happen because of the COVID situation and some news that just continues to happen as business opportunities present themselves regardless of the COVID situation across the world. Our first item, that we cannot remember happening in the non-COVID world, is that of great back-ups and delays at some of America’s cemeteries. This print article and video story from ABC – 7 […]
It didn’t take long into 2021 to hear of news on the acquisition front. This press release will tell you of the Foundation Partners Group (FPG) acquisition of three funeral homes in New Mexico. According to the press release the company acquired the Riverside Funeral Homes located in Albuquerque, Los Lunas, and Santa Fe, New Mexico. These three locations will be FPG’s first foray into the New Mexico market. The funeral homes were owned by Charlie Finnegan who had expanded […]
In a report from last week, MarketBeat made comments about the stock of Carriage Services. You can read the article here where MarketBeat states that one analyst rates Carriage Services a “Sell”, one analyst reports Carriage Services a “Hold”, and three analysts rate the company a “Buy”. The report also points out, over the past month or so, which company executives have bought the stock and which company executives have sold the stock. According to the article, “Corporate insiders” own […]
There are a lot of reasons that people may look to get the year 2020 in their rearview mirror. However, when you look individually at the performance of the public companies in the death care realm for the calendar year, my guess is that almost all of them would be happy to repeat the year’s performance in 2021. The trend among the public companies in 2020 could certainly be classified as COVID, leadership, and lawsuits. And, who would have thought […]
I was very fortunate as a youngster because I was schooled on investments and the market by my father. Giving me, what is now termed “financial literacy”, is one of the greatest gifts I have ever received. As a matter of fact, as a board member of a Big Ten institution, I have pushed our academic department, with the students’ blessing, to have a required course on Financial Literacy for all students during their Freshman year. It has not been […]
From my point of view, the new management and leadership team at StoneMor, Inc. has been executing with all the right decisions to get the Pennsylvania funeral home and cemetery based operator moving forward in a profitable direction. They have made tough decisions in contracting out cemetery labor, removing it from a direct employee relationship to save money. They have divested selective funeral homes, mostly on the United States west coast, to bring in capital and pay down debt with […]
Later in this article you can read a press release issued last week that announced the acquisition of Aftercare.com by Tukios. Tukios is a major player in the video memorial creation software used, by Tukios count, over 5000 funeral homes. In our opinion, at Funeral Director Daily, companies with reach like Tukios, are smart to use that reach to move into more facets of death care and the acquisition of Aftercare.com should be able leverage those Tukios clients into Aftercare.com […]
