Finance
I’m a fan of Warren Buffett and his company, Berkshire Hathaway. Matter of fact, I enjoy reading his annual shareholder letter because it just doesn’t tell how his businesses are doing, it explains to the reader why he is in those businesses and how he makes money for his shareholders. Back in 1936 a gentleman…
Read MoreMy own historical family businesses are a perfect example of the evolution of a business to fit the consumer and stay relevant. Back in 1872 my great-grandfather arrived in the New World with a skill as a cabinet maker. He set up shop and when people died family members approached him about building a coffin…
Read MoreSecurity National Financial Corporation (SNFC) continues to reel in the revenue in each of their three divisions according to this press release from mid-May containing their 1st Quarter 2020 results. The Utah based company conducts business in the death care field both in the financial services realm and the funeral and cemetery services realm. In…
Read MoreStoneMor, Inc. released its 1st Quarter financial results on May 13 and with it announced that they had completed their private offering of $400 million in Senior Notes. There seems to be no doubt that the refinancing and operational results reported in the May 13 report have lifted the spirits of the company. Here’s what…
Read MorePark Lawn’s CEO Brad Green comments on the labor market, acquisitions, preneed, and revenue per case
Park Lawn Corporation (PLC), the Toronto based funeral home and cemetery operator released First Quarter 2021 results last week. As expected the results were very strong as deaths from the pandemic in those months, especially January, continued to be high. Park Lawn Corporation’s net revenue grew about 26% to over $89 million for the quarter.…
Read MoreBatesville, a division of Hillenbrand Industries, reported their Fiscal Year 2nd Quarter during the first week of May. While the entire company revenue increased 11% year over year, Batesville, the funeral service side of the business, increased their revenue by over 20% to a quarterly volume of $166 million. Here’s what was said in the…
Read MoreService Corporation International (SCI) reported their 1st Quarter financial results last week and in it we found a lot of information and perspective that we believe is informative and, in our opinion, pretty good news as to how the American public is coming out of the pandemic with their actions on funeral care seemingly indicating…
Read MoreMatthews International reported their Fiscal year 2021 2nd Quarter results last week and with the report we noticed how it is impossible to not notice that their Memorialization business segment which consists of Aurora Casket, Matthews Cremation, and their cemetery, memorial, and mausoleum division, is increasingly leading the company. The other two segments of Matthews…
Read MoreFor the first time that I can remember since I have followed what is termed the Death Care Index (DCI), the DCI for a period of time has outpaced the standard measures of America’s public companies, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Nasdaq, and the S & P 500. For the time period of January…
Read MoreCarriage Services was the first of our public death care companies to report on their 1st quarter of 2021 (January thru March 2021 numbers) when they did so last week. Even knowing that January 2021 had a high number of additional mortality in the United States because of the number of Covid-19 deaths, you have…
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