Finance

SCI Reports 3rd Quarter Earnings

By Funeral Director Daily / October 27, 2017 /

Service Corporation International announced their 3Q 2017 results on October 25.  The company, based in Houston, Texas – much like Carriage Services – announced that the results were somewhat skewed by the hurricanes that happened during the quarter and affected some of their locations in Texas and Florida.  In SCI’s case, they announced in their…

Carriage Services Announces 3rd Quarter Results

By Funeral Director Daily / October 26, 2017 /

Following the close of business yesterday Carriage Services announced their 3rd quarter results.  After a short note that two of their large market areas, Florida and Texas, were affected greatly by Hurricanes Irma and Harvey – which they contend more than likely affected results. Here are some of the notes from the report, which can…

Assurant Agrees to Buy The Warranty Group

By Funeral Director Daily / October 20, 2017 /

Assurant, a global leader in insurance coverage, covering things as diverse as appliances, autos, mobile devices, electronics, and funeral plans announced today that it will acquire The Warranty Group, a portfolio company of TPG Capital and restructure into a new organization still know as Assurant.  Assurant plans to spend about $2.5 billion in cash, stock,…

StoneMor Amends Credit, Hints at Dividend Cut, Reduction of Units

By Funeral Director Daily / October 9, 2017 /

StoneMor Parnters, LP, a publicly traded death care company that owns and operates both funeral homes and cemeteries announced in a        press release on Friday, October 6, 2017, that they will be amending their secured credit facility.  You can read about the modifications here. In reading the entire release, the Chairman of…

Zacks Upgrades Carriage Services Stock

By Funeral Director Daily / September 29, 2017 /

On Tuesday, September 26, 2017, Zacks Investment Research issued an upgrade on the stock of funeral industry public company Carriage Services.  You can read about that upgrade and more about Carriage Services in that news release here. [wpforms id=”436″ title=”true” description=”true”]

Assurant Estimates Hurricane Loses

By Funeral Director Daily / September 26, 2017 /

Assurant, a major player in the funeral pre-need insurance industry has estimated losses in its Global Housing segment due to Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.  The company said in a statement, reported by MarketWatch, that it expects losses, net of reinsurance, for Hurricane Harvey in the Texas gulf to be in a range of up to…

StoneMor Opinion from Seeking Alpha

By Funeral Director Daily / September 25, 2017 /

Seeking Alpha put out an article today written by The Growth Path Guru that questions StoneMor’s ability to increase sales and also tries to figure out where the cash for future distributions will come from.  It also suggests that StoneMor is being questioned by the SEC on some issues. Funeral Director Daily take:  I’ve said…

Some History and Investment Perspective on Service Corporation International

By Funeral Director Daily / September 15, 2017 /

I’m a buy and hold investor and enjoy learning about companies that over time will bring a nice positive return to my portfolio. I also like to learn as much as I can about companies and those in the death care industry give me added perspective — I always try to learn what they are…

Article on Seeking Alpha Expects StoneMor Dividend Cut

By Funeral Director Daily / September 5, 2017 /

An article that appeared on Seeking Alpha on September 2, 2017, concludes that StoneMor Partners will be forced to either eliminate or greatly reduce their quarterly dividend soon.  StoneMor, a Master Limited Partnership built through funeral home and cemetery acquisitions has seen its stock plunge from about $26 per share in 2016 to a close…

DCI Value Down Again, Yield Continues to Rise

By Funeral Director Daily / August 22, 2017 /

We took a look at the Funeral Director Daily Death Care Index (DCI) at the close of the market day on Friday, August 18, 2017, which is a three month time period from when we last looked at it on May 19.  The DCI Index, which consists of one share of six publicly traded death…