Finance

Activist investors advocate for changes at Matthews

By Funeral Director Daily / December 20, 2022 /

  The first sentence from this article in The Star says all that needs to be said about what changes an investor group at Matthews International wants to take place, “Activist investor Barington Capital Group has built a stake in Matthews International Corp and argues the company needs to refresh its board, cut costs and…

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StoneMor has new CEO

By Funeral Director Daily / December 13, 2022 /

Joe Redling led cemetery and funeral home operator StoneMor through a time of transition.  That transition culminated with the public company being taken private in a buy-out from Axar Capital Management in early November 2022.  While the company is now a private enterprise concern and Funeral Director Daily has no access to its financial operations,…

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Rollings Funeral Service adds large New York firm

By Funeral Director Daily / December 5, 2022 /
RollingsFuneralService Logo

We learned last week that Georgia based Rollings Funeral Service completed the acquisition of a New York state firm that does close to 1,000 services annually and also serves the needs of pet owners by completing the cremation of about 600 pets annually.    Following is the press release from Rollings Funeral Service that announced…

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Park Lawn Corporation adds to Kansas City cluster

By Funeral Director Daily / December 1, 2022 /

It was announced in a recent press release that you can access here that funeral home and cemetery operator Park Lawn Corporation (PLC) has made another acquisition in the greater Kansas City market.  Just this week they have announced that they have acquired substantially all of the assets of the aptly named Park Lawn Funeral…

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Matthews: Memorialization sales rise, adjusted EBITDA drops for the year

By Funeral Director Daily / November 29, 2022 /

Matthews International, parent company of Matthews Cremation and Aurora Casket, announced their Fiscal Year 4th Quarter and Year End 2022 results last week.  President and CEO Joseph C. Bartolacci said this in the opening statements of the report, “I am pleased with our operating results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended September 30,…

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Death Care Index mirrors NASDAQ on the year

By Funeral Director Daily / November 28, 2022 /

As we move into the final month of the calendar year it seems like no one has the financial markets figured out.  In a year of rising inflation and rising interest rates, raised with the intention of curbing the inflation, the stock market indices have looked confused as to whether the worst is past or…

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Batesville notes from Hillenbrand Industries Quarterly Report

By Funeral Director Daily / November 22, 2022 /

Last week Hillenbrand Industries reported their Fiscal Year 4th Quarter of 2022 and their Year End results for Fiscal Year 2022.  It is noted that Hillenbrand operates on an annual fiscal year calendar from October 1 to September 30. Over the years Hillenbrand has moved from a company predominantly based in the death care business…

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Security National after tax earnings decline 121% in 3Q 2022

By Funeral Director Daily / November 18, 2022 /

In the 3rd Quarter of 2022 earnings release for Security National Financial Corporation (SNFC) released earlier this week, Scott M. Quist, the company’s President stated, “2022 is continuing to be a challenging year for our Company due primarily to the dramatic rise in inflation and interest rates, and the dramatic fall in equity values. In…

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Dignity plc and their price point pivot. . . . can they remain profitable?

By Funeral Director Daily / November 15, 2022 /

2022 marked a point in the history of Great Britain’s largest death care provider, Dignity plc, where they planned to increase consumer market share for their services by lowering their prices.  What they maybe didn’t anticipate was the highest inflationary pressures in the last 40 years on the costs of their services to happen at…

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Park Lawn Corporation reports 3rd quarter — mixed results

By Funeral Director Daily / November 14, 2022 /

The 3rd Quarter of 2022 has shown a trend of less deaths than the comparable 3rd Quarter of 2021.  As a matter of fact, as you can see from this report from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), provisional deaths for 3Q 2022 numbered 751,497 as compared to 874,495 in the same quarter of 2021. …

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