Finance
It’s an interesting week in the Death Care profession. Not only do we have Halloween coming up on Thursday, but the day before that, Wednesday, October 30, both of the two largest public funeral home and cemetery operating companies in America are expected to report their 3rd Quarter 2024 earnings. Depending on how…
Read MoreIn the last calendar year – dating back to October 16, 2023 – Matthews International stock, the parent company of Aurora Casket and Matthews Environmental Solutions (cremation), has dropped over 44% in a world, by contrast, where the Dow Jones Industrials have risen over 25% for the same dates. A recent (October 6,…
Read MoreLast week I read this press release from Service Corporation International (SCI) that was headlined “Service Corporation International announces Leadership Promotions”. As I read through the announcement it reflected the fact that SCI was making some changes in its leadership structure. While I don’t know the exact circumstances, in reading the press…
Read MoreBetter Place Forests (BPF) has been known for being a place where families can have meaningful “in-person” experiences with memorialization in the company forests. Last week we learned of BPF’s acquisition of digital platform Butterfly which will now give the company the addition of “High Tech” digital memorials that can be accessed online…
Read MoreWe learned of an interesting sale/acquisition story that happened recently in Illinois. This article from the Mendota Reporter will tell you of the sale of the Merritt Funeral Home to the Unger-Horner Funeral Home. It’s interesting to note, according to the article, that the Merritt Funeral Home has been in the Merritt…
Read MoreLast week we noticed in this short announcement from Market Screener that Houston-based Service Corporation International (SCI) had acquired the Porter Loring Mortuaries based in San Antonio, Texas. It appears that the Porter Loring Companies operated three funeral homes in the San Antonio, Texas, market. According to information gleaned from the San…
Read MoreThe last time we mentioned the upstart preneed company Prelude in Funeral Director Daily was this article back in March 2024 when we first heard of them. We mentioned that we didn’t know much about them but from their LinkedIn references and website it appeared that they were in the business of helping individual…
Read MoreJust the other day as I was looking at public companies in the Death Care realm I noticed that Matthews International was paying a dividend to stockholders of just over 4% annually. I look at those type of things because when I make an investment I not only like the stock price to eventually…
Read MorePropel Funeral Partners (PNP) which I believe is the 2nd largest Death Care provider in Australia and New Zealand and the largest “publicly traded” Death Care company in those countries reported their year-end results in late August. Propel’s fiscal year covers the time period of July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024.…
Read MoreFuneral Director Daily recently learned through this late August article in The Times (of London) that Dignity Funerals of Great Britain recently “has moved to reduce its debts after warning of “material uncertainties” over its ability to continue as a going concern, just over a year after it was taken private from the London…
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