Finance

Pinnacle/Rollings add staff. . . .importance and presence of non-public companies seems to be growing

By Funeral Director Daily / February 12, 2025 /

    We received an e-mail last week that announced “Pinnacle Funeral Service and Rollings Funeral Service are proud to announce that Nancy Weil has joined the team as Director of Community Outreach. . . . .Nancy’s career includes serving as the Membership Director for the Order of the Golden Rule (OGR) for the past…

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Matthews International 1Q 2025: Memorialization segment sales drop 8.5%

By Funeral Director Daily / February 11, 2025 /

  Suffice it to say that if you are in a C-Suite office at Matthews International you probably have a lot on your plate right now.  Amidst other items that we will report on later including a large shareholder’s discontent leading to Board member nominations, the sale process of the SGK Brand segment, and an…

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Trump and Musk. . . .Can you learn from their cost efficiency mandate?

By Funeral Director Daily / February 10, 2025 /

    President Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) leader Elon Musk are rapidly looking at costs that are currently in the government budget that may be able to be whittled out.  It may not be perfect and it may not even be proper — as is discussed in this Yahoo Finance article…

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Death Care investments. . . . an interesting observation

By Funeral Director Daily / February 7, 2025 /

    There has been a lot written about the stock markets in the two weeks of the Presidency of Donald Trump.  So much seems to depend on what the item of the day with President Trump is and that item seems to move markets one way or another.   I’m an amateur investor and…

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Our opinion: Matthews sale of ‘brand solutions unit” consolidates company into “Death Care and Innovation”

By Funeral Director Daily / January 29, 2025 /

    I’ve heard from people over the years that thought Matthews International was “too complicated” of a company.  The company that started in 1850 and and produced its first-ever bronze memorial in 1927, according to this article on Matthews history, continued with ever-increasing products for Death Care but also entered other business segments over…

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Research article about Carriage Services: “M&A to resume in 2025”

By Funeral Director Daily / January 28, 2025 /

  While it certainly is speculation on their part, one research contributor at Seeking Alpha, Caffital Research, says this about publicly held funeral home and cemetery operator Carriage Services, “The company has been quiet on the M&A front to improve the financial position throughout 2024, but with debt levels reaching a more desirable level, 2025…

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Newcomer Funeral Service adds locations in New York and Indiana

By Funeral Director Daily / January 27, 2025 /

    With one acquisition announced in December and another in January Newcomer Funeral Service, based in Topeka, Kansas, continues to grow.  The Newcomer website states “Newcomer Funeral Service Group is an independent funeral home, crematory, and cemetery service provider based in Topeka, Kansas with operations in ten states.”   According to this press releasefrom…

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Here’s an (almost) 6% Death Care related investment return

By Funeral Director Daily / January 9, 2025 /

    I learned long ago that there is no such thing as a free lunch and there is no such thing as a safe investment.  However, sometimes you can get pretty close to a free lunch (all you gave is time) as an attendee at a post-funeral lunch and pretty close with Treasury Bills…

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Carriage Services is Death Care’s public stock investment winner for 2024

By Funeral Director Daily / January 6, 2025 /

  If you are an investor in the public stock markets — and most people are now with the advent of IRA’s and 401k plans — you would more than likely be pleased with the growth of your investment had you simply followed an investment strategy of investing in the index of stock market holdings…

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2024 Business Story of the Year: Veridian Holdings takes Park Lawn Corporation private

By Funeral Director Daily / December 30, 2024 /

  Back in early June of this year (2024) many of us were surprised by this announcement that public funeral home and cemetery operator Park Lawn Corporation (PLC) had agreed to be acquired and taken private by a group known as Veridian Holdings.  Probably most consequential in that announcement was that one of the partners…

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